Grant has left the thousand dollars in the manila envelope. He knows his mother has looked under his mattress for weed and pills (he’s heard parents talking about prescription drug abuse, and they had a school assembly about it); he doesn’t do that stuff, but she might look there again anyway. He doesn’t really hide stuff in his room. The bottom drawer in his bureau is full of swimsuits, and it’s winter, so he decides Mom is not likely to paw through there anytime soon. He stuffs the envelope of cash under the stack of swimsuits and arranges them so that none of the paper shows. He closes the drawer.

How would he explain this money to anyone? He doesn’t have a job. He couldn’t save up that much. Will people assume he stole it? He’s trying not to think of how he might spend it. New Nike shoes, video games galore, asking that pretty girl in his English class to the movies and not have it be an outing full of a half-dozen friends.

But he can’t spend this money. It feels wrong. But if he doesn’t spend it, Mom will eventually find it, and then what?

He goes back to the computer.

He opens the email that contained the message. He can’t email his friend’s spoofed email back. Drew will get it, not his mysterious benefactor.

He looks back at the picture of the young woman dancing in the rain in front of the Eiffel Tower. Then he sees it. In the corner, a Gmail address, integrated into the picture, but written very small. A random-looking series of numbers and letters, not something a person would ever accidentally type or use as a regular address.

Left there to see if he would notice?

Grant goes to Google’s image search page and enters in woman in rain Eiffel Tower. They learned to use this feature in his history class.

There is a large number of matches—apparently photos of women and couples with umbrellas near the Eiffel Tower are romantic. He finds the image six rows down and clicks on it. It’s a stock photo, from a company based in France. He knows that stock photos are the kind of photos companies buy to use in ads or brochures or websites. There are several similar pictures, with the same young woman standing near the tower, with a variety of colored raincoats and umbrellas. In a few of the photos a handsome man accompanies her; they laugh, they hold hands, they walk. A variety of licenses are available for the photos, in different sizes and resolutions.

Why send him this, a meaningless photo designed to be used in an ad?

Lies come down like rain, the message said.

Well, it was a picture of people in the rain. Lies like rain.