Jessica signaled to Nancy to refill her cup, then continued skimming through the gallery of images on the screen, waiting for a face to pique her interest. Like a horny bachelor trawling dating sites in search of a Friday-night hookup.

Janine Solomon. Seventeen. White. Female. Missing for two months. Missing from Albany, New York.

No way was Jessica going back to New York State. She kept on scrolling.

John Preston. Fifty-nine. White. Male. Missing for six weeks. Missing from Richmond, Virginia.

Too far to drive to from here. Pass. She kept on scrolling.

Shondra Williams. Thirty-nine. Black. Female. Missing for eighteen months. Missing from Coolidge, Arizona.

That one was a maybe.

Jessica checked her emails again. There was a new message in the inbox. The subject read, “Your next case?” The sender was “John Doe.”

Opening the message, she expected to see a query from a potential client with an outline of the case they wanted her to take on. Instead, there was only a website link. Jessica was wary of opening links or attachments from unknown senders, but she could see from its address that this one was for a missing persons website she was familiar with.

She clicked on it.

The page loaded to show a missing person listing with a photo of a little kid of about two or three years old. She had mousy brown hair and big blue eyes and was clutching a Barbie doll in grubby, chubby fingers.

Jessica felt a hot flush hit her cheeks hard and fast, like sudden exposure to a tanning bed with new tubes.

It couldn’t be.

She looked again.

Holy shit.

The coffee she’d just sipped turned bitter in her mouth. The scrape of metal cutlery on plates at the next table suddenly seemed far too loud. The smell of fried onions from the kitchen out back made her want to throw up all over the wipe-clean laminated tabletop.

Dead or didn’t want to be found.

Jessica Shaw now knew there was a third category she had never even considered.

Those who didn’t know they were missing.

2 AMY

2

AMY

Amy Ong ran her fingers softly along the clothes hanging in the closet as she tried to decide which outfit to choose. She pulled out a red satin dress, held it in front of her, and stared at her reflection in the full-length mirror on the inside of the closet door.

The dress had been a gift from her parents. Her mom and dad had wanted her to have something special to wear to the celebratory dinner they’d organized when she had been accepted to study criminal justice at Cal State LA after winning two coveted scholarships. Amy was the oldest of three girls born into a working-class Chinese family and was the first Ong to go to college. All of her relatives were proud of her success, but none of them were surprised. Amy had always been the smart girl. The good girl.