I run everything we learned through my head. My mother’s file. The interview with Ewen. My abduction. Jennifer’s murder. David Sullivan’s death. The President.

After a long minute, I say, “Here’s how I see it. I think David Sullivan and my mother — in addition to working together on the Sleep Control Program — had a long-standing affair.” I try to avoid my father’s gaze as I add, “Who knows how far it went back.”

“When he escapes from the Russian prison camp,” I continue, “the two pick up where they left off. David Sullivan has moved up the ranks, he is now a state senator with far more to lose if the affair leaks. But what both fear most when they are approached by sixteen-year-old Jennifer Nubers is that if the press looks into their affair, the Sleep Control Program — what the two have been working on for over a decade — will be compromised.

“They tell Jennifer they will get her the money — whatever she asks for, probably ten or twenty grand being that David is a senator. A week later, they snatch her off the streets, keep her somewhere while they interrogate her about the photographs. She is worried for her brother’s safety and doesn’t divulge the photographs’ whereabouts.

“My mother snaps and hits her with something on the back of the head. Maybe she wasn’t trying to kill her, but regardless, she does. Possibly, David Sullivan isn’t even present when this happens. My mother needs help moving the body and he offers to help, but only if she promises to write a full confession — or videotape a confession — one which absolves him of Jennifer’s murder entirely.

“They dump the body and decide to break off the affair. A couple days later my mother comes home, packs up some of her stuff, then goes to Honduras for the next three years. Meanwhile, David Sullivan keeps the file on his computer or video camera or whatever. Jennifer’s alleged murderer, Chase Wingleberry, is arrested two weeks later, falsely confesses to the crime after twelve hours of interrogation and is promptly bailed out by his wife and killed. Sullivan holds on to the confession, just in case new evidence ever arises in Jennifer’s death. Flash drives are invented at some point in the late 1990s, though they were probably already in use by the CIA and other government types by then, and he transfers whatever proof he has to a flash drive. Then, when he and his wife die, all his possessions are transferred to his son.