“Yeah, scammers use stock all the time,” he says. “OK, when clicking on J. J. Watt took you to the site, the site could still display the lady-in-rain picture and the message, but it could have also installed malware on your laptop. That could be anything from monitoring when you’re online to leaving a back door open where the bad guy can come in, see what’s new on your computer, download it, and leave. You could have a little beacon hidden on your laptop now that tells the Sender everything about your laptop; it would barely be a blip in the bandwidth; you’d have to know to look for it.”

“Can you find it?” He feels sick, someone peering into his life.

“Yes. I should tell you, if you connect or share with your parents’ or sister’s computers, your family’s network could have been compromised, too.”

“All right. Can you check mine? And can you see if you can find who sent me the email?”

“I can maybe find out the IP address, and then I can contact the company that owns that IP address. But I don’t know if I can get a name. We’ll see. It involves me using some trickery on them.” Here Peter finally smiles a little. He looks a lot better when he smiles. More like Mike.

“How long will that take?”

“I don’t know. We’ll see. Will you let me know if you hear from them again? And don’t click on any more pictures from friends.”

“I will. And I won’t. Thanks, Peter.”

“I’ll bring your laptop back soon,” Peter says. “I want to thank you for something, though, Grant. You hanging with my dad. I appreciate it.”

“You’re not mad?”

“I hate fishing. He knows it. He goes with you and he has a good time. It’s been hard since my mom died. I’m glad he has you for stuff like that.”

“You went fishing with him yesterday, though.”

“I make an effort. He fishes and I just sit there and we talk about school and what I’ll do with my life and what I’ve learned about computers, although he’d rather talk sports or business. And now Danielle is gone. He really thought she was the next chapter in his life.”

Grant feels a heaviness in his heart.

Peter clears his throat. “Dad loves me, even though we’re opposites. I know that. We don’t get to pick our kids. Well, your parents did.” And Peter gives an odd little laugh.

“Yes,” Grant says, smiling. “Although it was kind of random. It wasn’t like they shopped among the cribs and picked me.”

“Oh. I don’t know how it works,” Peter says. He slides Grant’s laptop into his backpack. “I know you don’t want to be without this, so I’ll check it as quickly as I can.”