It was hard to tell for sure, but, yes, they looked like mine. Black satin, pink lace. From the shop in Williamsburg, if I wasn’t mistaken, where the drawers made no sound when you tugged them open. Ninety dollars of sex appeal, purchased for our first Valentine’s Day together. I’d always been the girl who lived in clean-edged cotton, and I’d wanted to surprise Davis, reach into my dresser and not grab something from Uniqlo. He’d gotten them off before he’d had a chance to take them in. My secret weapon, he’d joked afterward, fingers laced with mine on the sofa in his living room – stops men in their tracks. He’d bought me plenty in our years together, but the others had felt tainted, part of a story I no longer wanted to be part of. These were the only ones I’d brought with me, a memento of a different time, when it had just been Davis and me. And then Davis and me and Dusty. But never Davis and me and things that we didn’t talk about but that left me raw.

The tips of my fingers went cold and tingly as I realized they were now evidence against me.

‘Miss King?’

‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘What are you asking?’

He sighed. ‘Are these yours?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said, hedging my words until I knew why he was asking. ‘Maybe. I mean, a lot of those sets look alike.’

He let them drop back into the evidence bag, then motioned to the officer. ‘Can you get a DNA swab from Miss King?’

She nodded, and then retrieved cotton swabs, plastic, out of a silver case. ‘It will only take a second,’ she said, her voice kind. ‘Open your mouth, if you don’t mind.’

It felt so violating. Pieces of me on fuzzy cotton.

‘I have an inkling they’re yours,’ McKnight said. ‘But we do need to check.’

‘Why does it even matter?’ I asked as she tucked the swab into another container.

‘Because today, while you were speaking to me at the station, our team found these buried pretty deep in a corner of Mr Nolan’s cabin,’ McKnight said, matter-of-fact. ‘We’ll be checking them against Ms Abernathy’s and Rachel Dry’s DNA as well.’ He cleared his throat. ‘And Claire Alby’s,’ he said, turning red. ‘If they do match yours, we’ll have hard evidence that puts you in there, adds to your motive.’

‘I wasn’t in there,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘I told you. If those are mine’ – my voice rasped – ‘it’s because someone took them. Or John did, I don’t know.’

It didn’t make sense, it didn’t align with who I thought John was, but the half-naked photo of me didn’t, either. Perhaps I hadn’t really known him at all.