Imani selected warm, casual clothing, the kind of wear-all-day gear that one could sleep or cry or work out in. Sweatshirts and yoga pants. Sweaters and jeans. She also grabbed handfuls of panties, bras, and socks, as well as a box of maxi pads tucked in the underwear drawer.

“Any word on that list from Ava yet?” Imani asked as she put the pile in the center of Ava’s unmade bed.

Bill hovered by the exit, avoiding eye contact with his granddaughter’s undergarments. “I’ll call Nancy,” he said, stepping into the hallway.

Detective Calvente moved closer to the door, perhaps to keep an eye on both of them. Imani decided it was now or never. With all the detectives’ innuendos in his head, Bill might try to shut down any defense of Melissa.

“You’re wrong, you know,” Imani said, folding one of the shirts. “You don’t understand Melissa at all.”

The detective widened her stance, a defensive maneuver that wasn’t quite as obvious as crossing arms over one’s chest. “What do you mean?”

“You told Nate’s parents that she was having an affair.”

The detective looked over her shoulder to where Bill was pacing. “I asked about the state of their son’s marriage.”

Imani stopped folding to fix the detective in her sights. “You suggested that she was carrying on with some guy from Instagram, which Nate’s parents will probably repeat to their granddaughter even though it’s not true.”

Detective Calvente held her gaze. They were two dogs, Imani thought, testing who would snap first.

After a moment, the detective stood down. “I was planning to ask you about it,” she said, pulling something from her pants pocket. “Since you’re here, might as well check out the photo.”

Imani expected to see the pebbled green of Melissa’s phone case. Instead, the detective typed a code into a plain black phone. She tapped the screen, typed again, and then turned it to face Imani. “Recognize this guy?”

On the screen was an actor’s headshot if Imani had ever seen one. The photo was taken straight on, flaunting the near-perfect symmetry of its subject’s face. He had black hair and a matching five-o’clock shadow that looked dusted onto his boyish jawline. His eyes were deep-set and dark brown, but so luminous that they almost appeared another color, something belonging in the hazel category.

There was something vaguely familiar about him, though Imani doubted she’d ever seen him before. He had a leading-man face, Imani figured, the kind with features that Hollywood found again and again as the original model grew too old to play the same characters. The man’s handle meant nothing to her: MickyKline_Drinks. Was he an alcoholic? What kind of person bragged about drinking post-college?

“I don’t know him,” Imani said.

Detective Calvente tilted her head, like she suspected Imani of lying.