She steered the truck onto East Los Angeles Avenue and passed shopping plazas and fast food outlets and a health center and a Wells Fargo. Amy Ong stared out sullenly from yet another poster attached to a tree trunk with plastic cable ties. Jessica hooked a right onto First Street and followed the signs for the 118 freeway.

Simi Valley and its perky bungalows and clipped lawns and double garages disappeared behind her and were soon replaced by the impressive, sprawling peaks of the Santa Susana Mountains. Pockmarked with shale and sandstone and shrubs in sunbaked camouflage shades of green, khaki, and brown, the wide-open spaces were so different from the narrow gray New York streets where Jessica had grown up.

Her childhood memories stretched back only as far as those various cramped apartments she’d shared with her father in noisy, low-income neighborhoods in Queens, before Tony had finally scraped together enough cash for the house in Blissville.

He had died two years ago, leaving her with a mother she couldn’t remember and a father she’d never forget and no one to call right now who could tell her the missing persons listing was nothing more than a crazy, stupid mistake. She bit her lip until she tasted blood and floored the gas, the City of Angels in her sights.

Eagle Rock sat in the San Rafael Hills, sandwiched between Glendale to the west and Pasadena to the east and named after a huge rock outcropping that cast a shadow resembling an eagle with outspread wings at certain times of the day.

Jessica remembered reading an online LA Weekly article describing the place as one of America’s “hottest neighborhoods,” which meant young urban professionals had moved in, house prices had rocketed, and trendy bars and restaurants had sprung up all along Colorado and Eagle Rock Boulevards.

The last known sighting of Alicia Lavelle had taken place on York Boulevard, another of Eagle Rock’s main thoroughfares.

Jessica exited the Glendale Freeway directly onto York, where candy-colored homes in Craftsman and mission revival styles flashed by on either side, and drove until she came to a crossroads. There was a bunch of restaurants to the left, a Presbyterian church to the right, and an ARCO station straight ahead. Jessica didn’t need food, salvation, or gas, so she drove straight through the intersection and passed a late-night pharmacy and a drive-through Starbucks before spotting a small motel just off the main street.