Hayes took a moment to compose his reply. “When you’re a seventeen-year-old boy, to find out just how easily you can be replaced . . . That’s not the best feeling in the world. But it was classic Shana. She wasn’t interested in your feelings. Only her own. I might have been a kid, but I wasn’t totally stupid.”

“Did she show up in your bedroom again?” Phil asked.

“Couple of times. I continued to tell her no. She finally got the message.”

“Very noble of you.”

Hayes shook his head. “It wasn’t like that. Shana never claimed to have feelings for me or vice versa. I was merely convenient for her. That’s all.”

“Oh yeah?” Phil drawled. “At which point did she gift you with items from her father, Harry Day?”

Hayes stilled. Then, “Ah fuck.”

“We saw the note listed on the Internet, Sam. Thanks to Harry’s meteoric rise to fame in the past twenty-four hours, looks to us you’re all set to score a major profit. Convenient, don’t you think, that Shana’s escape should bring her father back into the limelight, and here you are, holding items that once belonged to a notorious serial killer.”

“Okay, okay.” Hayes sounded a little desperate. “It’s not what you think.”

“What do we think?”

“I mean, I didn’t get the items from Shana. I never even heard her talk about her father. All the kids in the neighborhood knew, of course, and we’d jaw about it, but only behind her back.”

“How’d you get the letter, Sam?”

“I found it.”

“You found it?” Phil’s tone was dubious.

“Yeah. Right before my fall. I was on the job, working a long day. Came home to a large manila envelope sitting in front of my door. I opened it to discover some old documents, the letter, that kind of thing. At first, I didn’t understand, but then, when I saw the name Harry Day . . . I did a little Internet research, confirmed the items probably belonged to him. As part of that, I also discovered some websites where you can sell this kind of crap—I mean, can you believe people wanting to collect anything once touched by a murderer? I didn’t do anything right away, but then, last week . . . I’m not exactly working these days, you know. If someone wants to send me money for a stupid note I found on my doorstep, who am I to judge?”

“You found it?” Phil pressed again.

“Yeah.”

“Show us the envelope, Sam.”