In January, when Breanna went missing, Eddie wouldn’t tell anyone whether he knew where she was. He shared the temptation to vanish. He’d recently written a letter to his mom in jail saying he and Breanna were going to run away. They just didn’t know where to go.

The police had been to this motel at least 190 times in the last year. When two police officers finally arrived at the motel this time, Eddie quietly announced that he’d look for her, and rode his bike into the dark.

An hour later, Eddie pedaled up and murmured that he had found Breanna in Seccombe Lake Park, a few blocks away.

Reporter Joe Mozingo and photographer Francine Orrin in the Los Angeles Times write a rich, visual portrait of the children who live at a motel in San Bernardino, the poorest city of its size in California.

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