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“I was in your shop yesterday,” said Vesta, who’d also recognized the guy now.

Mr. Kramer frowned, and for a moment two different sentiments seemed to engage in a tug of war inside his bosom: the desire to please a potential customer on the one hand, and the desire to squash the person who’d scratched his nice car. Then the salesman in him seemed to get the upper hand, and he forced something approaching a smile on his face and said, “I remember you. You were with your son-in-law Tex Poole, weren’t you?”

“Yeah, that’s me,” said Vesta. “In fact we were going to drop by again, but not until we talked to the cops first. Did you know that someone tried to break into your computer last night?”

Mr. Kramer’s eyes narrowed. “So they told you about that, did they? Tex Poole broke into my computer last night and wants me to pay him a million dollars!”

Vesta shared a quick look with Scarlett.

“Actually Tex did no such thing,” said Scarlett. “My nephew is a computer nerd, and he was showing off last night. And he just happened to come upon this breakin into your company’s computer, and he actually managed to prevent it.”

Mr. Kramer looked from Vesta to Scarlett.“You two broke into my computer?”

“No. We stopped someone from doing exactly that,” Scarlett explained.

Alec and Chase had also walked out of the station and now joined the discussion.

“Bad scratch you’ve got there, Mr. Kramer,” said Alec.

“She did that,” the Kitchen King growled, pointing a stubby finger in Vesta’s direction.

Vesta saw that there was another scratch and a dent across the hood of the car, so she said,“You really should learn how to drive more carefully, Mr. Kramer.”

“Never mind that,” he growled. Then he seemed to remember once more what they’d been discussing before Alec had stuck his big nose in. “So who broke into my computer—Tex Poole or you?”

“Listen carefully, Mr. Kitchen King,” said Vesta. “Last night we were goofing around, and we just happened to discover that some hacker was trying to break into your company’s computer system, see? And guess what? We stopped the attack!”

Chase suppressed a grin, as Alec cut a tired glance in his mom’s direction. “You are the hacker?”

“Me! A hacker! As if! No, Scarlett’s nephew likes to think he’s something of a computer nerd, and last night he just happened to be showing off all the things he can do with a computer—you’d be amazed by the stuff that’s possible these days.”

“I’ll bet,” Chase muttered.

“And so we got to talking about these recent ransomware attacks, see?”

“What recent ransomware attacks?” asked Alec. “I don’t know anything about any recent ransomware attacks.”

Vesta ignored him.“So he told us to pick a target—any target—and he’d demonstrate how it’s done.”

“You did what?!”

“And since we’d been shopping at Mr. Kramer’s very nice emporium yesterday afternoon, I said, just for a lark, why don’t you try to hack into the Kitchen King? And you know what? He did!”

“And it was then that he discovered that some other hacker was actually busy carrying out just such a ransomware attack!” said Scarlett.

“Can you imagine?” said Vesta.

“Oh, but I can,” said Chase, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

“And so he asked us what he should do, and of course we told him to stop the attack, if he could, and that’s what he did.” Vesta now stood beaming at Fred Kramer. “And so what do you say to that, Fred? We actually saved your company!”

“Then how come I got a message this morning when I booted up my computer that unless I pay one million dollars in bitcoin my systems would remain on lockdown?” asked a still irate-looking Fred Kramer, his turtle neck now a nasty color purple.

“My nephew explained all that,” said Scarlett. “He said it might take a while before everything is cleared up. He managed to stop the attack, but certain remnants of the virus will still be on your system. Your IT department should be able to deal with that.”

“Well, they did,” Fred admitted reluctantly. “I just got a call from my IT guy and he said it looks like things are clearing up.”

“Well, now you know who to thank for that,” said Vesta, patting the big man on the back.

“I still don’t get why the name Tex Poole popped up,” said Fred mulishly.

“Because we were working on Tex’s wi-fi when it happened,” Vesta explained.

“Yeah, my nephew doesn’t like to use his own wi-fi when he demonstrates that kind of stuff,” Scarlett added.

“Now I wonder why that is?” Chase said with a grin.

“Look, maybe we can discuss all this over dinner,” said Vesta now. “What do you say, Fred? Dinner at our place tonight? We’ll thresh this whole thing out, and then we can talk turkey.”

“Turkey?”

“The kitchen remodel! What better way to celebrate this new and beautiful friendship that has just sprung up between us than to sit down for a nice dinner and talk kitchens!”

“Mh…” said Mr. Kramer, and glanced at that nasty scratch on his car again.