She was hit by a car while riding her bike to my house when we were seven, but we played together for years afterwards, until she figured I’d be okay if she left. When she crossed through me, I saw the true meaning of love, and I’ve never forgotten it. It wasn’t until I met my current BFF, Cookie Kowalski, that I realized that that kind of love could exist more than once in a lifetime. Philia. A deep, selfless friendship. A loyalty of epic proportions, in which one is willing to sacrifice anything for the other.

And looking at these girls, who’d surely died under tragic circumstances, I saw that kind of love, that kind of closeness, no matter the horrid circumstances that brought them together. They played and skipped and laughed as though their lives were filled with cupcakes and cotton candy.

“It’s sad,” Agent Carson said, taking in the view before us. “Seeing it abandoned like this. Run-down. So utterly lifeless.”

“Explain to me again how many people were killed that night,” I said.

Reyes leaned against a tree and was watching the serene tableau with a gentle smile on his face. I’d forgotten how much he liked kids. Thought they were cool. He would make a fantastic dad. Maybe his longcomings could make up for my short ones once we entered into the sacred realm of parenthood.

“Five,” Kit said. “And one girl disappeared that night. We’ve never found her.”

I nodded. “Any suspects named Jason?”

She scoffed softly. “No, but there was a Mrs. Voorhees on our persons-of-interest list. She had seemed troubled.” Kit gazed at me a long moment as I watched a little girl, quite a bit younger than the rest, take a cautious step closer to us. She had startlingly white hair with a pixie cut that matched her doll-like face, and she wore a dress that fairly exploded in a cascade of powder blue ruffles. Not exactly the attire one wore to summer camp. But one of her most adorable qualities was her ears: They stuck out and curved up a little, and if I believed in elves, I’d swear she was one. Or perhaps she was a tree sprite.

“What?” Agent Carson asked at last, doubt and curiosity in her tone. “Why did you want to know how many were killed when you’ve been over that file with a fine-toothed comb?”

I knelt down, pretending to take a closer look at the ground, as though I were some kind of tracker. I coaxed the elfling closer with a smile. “Just double-checking,” I said, opening a hand out of Kit’s line of sight. Many more had died here than just those five victims. I scanned the grounds again as the elfling made up her mind. At least eight girls played in the field around us. Possibly nine.

The elfling gazed at me, her attention rapt as she took in the bright light that forever surrounded me. Only the departed and a few other supernatural beings could see it. I could not, however, but it was apparently nothing short of amazing.

Reyes knelt beside me, and the elfling took a wary step back. When I looked over at him, he nodded toward the tree line, where another little girl stood in the shadows, hidden almost completely behind a pine. If not for her pale striped shirt and turquoise shorts, I would not have spotted her.

I gestured toward Kit, and he agreed with another nod.

“Can I see the file again?” I asked her.

She handed it to me as Reyes stood. With space between them, the elfling relaxed visibly. She raised a hand in the air and laughed softly at something I couldn’t make out. Her grin was infectious. Reyes and I each wore one quite similar.

“Would you like to see the crime scene?” Kit asked me, beginning to wonder what I was doing.

It was the perfect segue. “Sure. Can you show it to Reyes first? I’ll be there in a sec.”

Kit looked from me to Reyes and then back, not sure what to think. Then, with a shrug, she led him off to the cabins.

The main one, probably the meeting lodge, was the only one with slight remnants of police tape on it. The tattered strips swayed loosely in the soft breeze, stirring the dirt and debris below them. Most of the windows had been broken, and the roof sat slightly askew. Neglect had a way of aging a place.

Free to talk privately, I sobered and winked at the little girl in front of me, who was so utterly fascinated with my light. Before I could get down to business, Jessica materialized beside me. She looked out over the girls. They had stopped what they were doing and were now watching us. Most were merely curious. A couple seemed to withdraw. Those would probably disappear before I could ask them anything.

“What happened?” Jessica asked, astonished.

“We aren’t sure,” I said. “But we’re working on it.”

Another girl, perhaps nine or ten and wearing a seersucker jumpsuit, joined the elfling as she danced and played. Looking as though they were running through sprinklers on a summer afternoon, they laughed and tried to catch particles of my light in their hands, clasping them together midair, then bringing them close to their eyes and peeking inside. Then they would burst into a fit of giggles. While I couldn’t help but laugh with them, Jessica stood confused. Mortified.

“I don’t understand,” she said, her brows drawn in concern. “What happened to them?”

“I don’t know, Jessica.” I thumbed through the file until I came to a news article that included a picture of the homeless man who had frequented the area. The police were taking him in for questioning and someone had snapped a shot. “We’re trying to find that out.” I held the file open to the girls. “Can you answer a few questions for me?” I asked them.