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My name is Ariella Montero, but you have to call me Sylvia.

There are some things I can never know for certain.Advertisement

Someone used me to ruin a man's political career and my own reputation. Who and why, I don't know.

Someone found my birth certificate on file in an office building in upstate New York and leaked it to the media.

Someone is monitoring the movements of every person on every social network website and has nearly unlimited access to their personal and financial information-yours and mine included.

Why, and who they are, I don't know.

When I try to imagine them, I see no faces-only grey shapes moving through smoke. Behind them, above them, or beneath them, I sense a more powerful presence, pulling the strings.

At breakfast, on our first full day back in Kerry, my father showed me an article in the Irish Times. The item was very short, headlined, COAST GUARD SEARCHING FOR LOST SENATOR.

The U.S. Coast Guard is conducting a search for former senator Neil Cameron in an area some 1,200 miles off the mid-Atlantic American coast.

A sailboat registered in Cameron's name was found adrift in the area yesterday. The 25-foot sloop, called Dulcibella, was spotted by two passing tankers. The Coast Guard boarded the boat late yesterday. The boat was empty and apparently undamaged, a spokesman said.

Cameron, 31, gave up his senate seat and dropped out of the U.S. presidential race last spring after several media reports confirmed that his romantic partner was a fifteen-year-old girl.

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I read it twice, my hands clutching my sides, feeling like a child again. My mother refilled my teacup.

"Are you all right?" my father asked.

I took a deep breath. "He might have survived," I said in the calmest, most adult voice I could manage. "And if he did, I'd bet he knows the answers to my questions."

I was thinking, And if he didn't survive? I made myself visualize the words: what if Cameron is dead?

In that case, I would have to go on, and the unanswered questions would remain-with me, and with Kathleen.

The End pqdm.com