Jessica threw back the sheets and walked gingerly to the bathroom. She had a cold shower to clear her head and scrubbed off last night’s makeup with a rough washcloth. Gargled twice with mouthwash after brushing her teeth to get rid of the lingering whiskey aftertaste. Then she towel dried her hair; carefully applied eyeshadow, liner, and mascara; and dressed in slim black cropped pants, a striped T-shirt, and Converse sneakers. She needed coffee and carbs to get rid of what was left of the hangover.

The heat outside was as heavy as a wool coat, and the cloudless sky blazed bright turquoise and gold. Jessica glanced at the room to the right of her own, where a brass number six was nailed to the door. The curtains in the small, high window were open, and the parking space in front of the door was empty. She turned left, in the direction of the office.

There was no sign of Hopper or Holliday or anyone else in the lobby, but thankfully some doughnuts were still laid out on a tray on the counter. She piled a couple onto a paper plate, filled a takeout cup with strong black coffee from the Mr. Coffee machine, and took the breakfast back to her room.

She sat down at the desk, picked up a doughnut, and opened the laptop.

As a private investigator, Jessica regularly made use of various databases to carry out background checks for clients. The next hour was spent delving, as much as possible, into the past of Eleanor Lavelle. What she found was a woman whose short life seemed to have had more missing pieces than a yard sale jigsaw puzzle. No matter how hard she looked, Jessica couldn’t quite see the full picture.

Holliday had been right about Eleanor Lavelle’s early years. Eleanor’s mother had been a known drug user and prostitute, with a long history of minor offenses: solicitation, possession, petty theft, drunk and disorderly behavior. An old police booking photo of Donna Lavelle showed a skinny twentysomething with a bad peroxide dye job sprouting two-inch roots, hard eyes, and cheeks like razor blades.

Eleanor Lavelle had come into the world in January 1967, and the woman who’d given birth to her had checked out just seven months later. It was the Summer of Love, when tens of thousands of hippies descended upon San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury neighborhood to make music and art and protest against ’Nam to a soundtrack provided by the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, and Quicksilver Messenger Service.

Around the same time, Donna Lavelle was pounding the backstreets of Hollywood, chasing johns, and scoring H. The flower children eventually grew up, got jobs, got old. Donna Lavelle never had.