A shocking disappearance. Tragic family news. V searches for answers . . . even if it leads her into the face of danger.

Fourteen-year-old freshman Violet "V" Jiménez knows Emma will have her back on their first anxiety-ridden day of high school. So when her best friend is kidnapped just as classes begin, the determined V vows to save Emma at any cost. But her resolve is thrown a major curve with her mother's sudden cancer diagnosis.

Struggling to cope with the shock of her mom's ailing health and feeling things couldn't possibly get worse, V finds solace following in the footsteps of her favorite teenage TV detective. Then when she discovers a link to another missing girl, her investigation takes her on an alarming ride deep inside an insidious criminal lair.

Can V expose the city's menacing underbelly before her friend is lost forever?