On the surface, except for a strict, ill-tempered father, Bridgette Carpenter seemed to have everything a teenage girl could want. She had a family, nice clothes and lived in a nice home in a nice middle-class neighborhood. But, if everything was so right, why did everything seem so wrong? Malone decides to find out when he hires on to go after a runaway girl. Unfortunately, by the time Malone picks up her trail Bridgette had already traveled to a place that seemed a million miles away from her nice home in Echo Park. Now she was caught up in a dark world of drugs, pimps, and sexual exploitation-a kind of hell on earth inhabited by people who care only about making a fast buck and savoring forbidden pleasures. Can Malone find Bridgette in time before she falls victim to appalling, unspeakable acts that will steal her childhood and perhaps her very life?