“Anya had a series of tumultuous relationships among the Russian elite before Mike. She was his mistress who made his unhappy marriage bearable. She had Peter, fathered in another relationship, and she gave him up for adoption as the father would give no support. She got Peter back, then got cold feet again and returned him. But Peter was never adopted by a family. After Anya’s death, we believe Mike learned about Peter and adopted him, as a way of honoring Anya. But he did so under his Mike Horvath name, which he had used in intelligence operations against Canada. Peter Horvath was raised by Mike in Toronto, where Mike established a second household that his Russian wife didn’t know about. After his wife unexpectedly died, he was free to move between both lives as Mike and Mikhail as he liked. But he got Russian intelligence hackers to train Peter and used Peter to reach out via email to your son, as Anya, sending those pictures and messages to slowly break down Grant. Peter was helping his adoptive father destroy your lives. His loyalty to Mike was absolute and unquestioning.”

“But Peter talked about losing his mother.”

“He has very few memories of Anya, but I know he felt her loss.” Jill clears her throat. “That so many images and details of Anya’s life were scrubbed off the internet—Peter told us his father asked him to do that. To help erase his mother’s presence.”

Iris feels ill. “Grant asked Peter for help.”

“Of course. He was a trusted fellow teenager with the know-how; Grant probably wouldn’t have gone to an adult. Peter was the perfect confidant—actively hacking your family’s computers and phone, and better yet, Peter could tell Grant any lie or truth about the hacking that helped their cause, and Grant would believe him. Peter told Grant what their father wanted Grant told. Bits and pieces of the story—emails from Saint Petersburg, hints of lies told by you—to warm Grant up to the idea of his Russian father.”

“What will happen to Peter?”

“The Russians don’t want him; he’s no longer a citizen, and they’ve frozen all of Mike’s financial accounts that they can reach. Grant is his sole relative. He has no one else. He’ll face charges here and probably be deported back to Canada.”

Iris closes her eyes. “He did the same to me with my phone. Pretended to break into that phone of Marland’s and shattered my world with those texts supposedly from Anya.”

“All communications to Marland and the Butlers from ‘Anya’ were from Mike. That was Mike’s alias in the operation, one designed to unnerve you if you discovered it.”

“I don’t think they thought I would do anything but run.”

“And that way they could have easily gotten rid of you. They didn’t need to frame you for a crime.”