The Unearthed: Book One, The Eddie McCloskey Series by Evan Ronan Page A

eight-thirty.”
    “So Eamon waited to call. He was probably too traumatized to do anything.”
    Evan shrugged. “The timing never sat right with me.”
    “Have you heard the recording of the 911 call?” Tim asked.
    “Eamon sounded completely out of it. I have the written transcript.”
    “With respect to William, did they call him William? Or was it Bill, Billy?” Tim asked.
    “Eamon continually refers to him as William in the police transcripts.”
    “How about the home-schooling,” Moira said. “Where was the classroom?”
    “Living room. Complete with a chalkboard and two desks for the kids. Like their own little world in there.”
    Tim said, “If Eamon was there and saw the whole thing, he must have an idea what prompted the argument.”
    “Eamon told the police the argument was about William. He said he wasn’t really listening. He was used to them fighting and paid it no mind till it became physical.”
    “Pretty morbid,” Nancy said.
    “You said you work with teenagers, right?” Tim asked.
    “Teen-aged girls, yes.”
    “Let me ask you a general question.”
    “Oh, there are no general questions with a psychologist.” Evan chuckled. “Stop now if you don’t want her analyzing your childhood.”
    Nancy smiled at her husband. “That’s enough out of you.”
    Tim leaned forward. “How old are kids when they stop having imaginary friends?”
    Nancy sat up and put her feet on the floor. “Like we find with so many things, conventional thinking is wrong. There was a study done a few years ago on this. They originally thought that only one in three preschoolers would have imaginary friends. What they found was that by age seven, two out of three kids had imaginary friends.”
    Moira was impressed. She imagined that Evan and Nancy probably had some interesting conversations over the dinner table. Why couldn’t she find a guy like that? Maybe she had. Maybe she was just afraid of hurting Eddie by dating one of his best friends.
    Nancy added, “The same study found children as old as twelve having imaginary friends.”
    “So thirteen’s not a stretch.”
    She shook her head. “Conventional thinking was that kids with imaginary friends were maladjusted, or were more likely to develop relational problems in the future. What this study found was just the opposite—kids with imaginary friends were creative and developed healthy relationships with real people.”
    “How about this,” Tim said. “Would it be out of the ordinary for a thirteen-year-old to just start having an imaginary friend?”
    “We’re starting to move from the realm of the general into the specific,” Nancy said.
    Without reviewing a case history, my opinion isn’t worth much.”
    Tim smiled at her. “I’m not going to sue you for malpractice.”
    Evan laughed. “Good, because the insurance premiums are highway robbery.”
    Nancy smiled. “How do you know for a fact the child never had an imaginary friend until recently?”
    “That’s what his parents told us.”
    “So that’s what he told them,” she said.
    Tim appreciated her skeptic’s eye. “Yeah, but that’s all we have to go on.”
    “Tell me about him? Her?”
    “Him.”
    “Was there some traumatic event in his life recently? Did he lose a family member?”
    “The family moved here six months ago from out of state, so he’s the new kid that doesn’t know a lot of people.”
    “Has he been in any trouble at school?”
    “He was in a fight yesterday.”
    Nancy nodded, as if confirming her initial belief. “It’s not exactly out of the ordinary under the circumstances for him to have an imaginary friend.”
    “Yeah, but how likely is it?”
    “I’d need to know more. Does he have a good relationship with his parents? Any brothers or sisters? Does he suffer from low self-esteem?”
    Evan said, “Ask a question, get a question.”
    “You should talk.” She smiled at Tim and Moira. “It’s impossible to get a straight answer out of a writer