I’m actually relieved at this new information. “The FBI has to worry about my father becoming their boss.”
“Exactly,” Bob states. “So if they don’t like him, now’s the time to use you to keep him out of the White House.” There is a knock on the door and Bob grimaces. “Just like the FBI to be early. They’re trying to throw you off.”
“Good thing this isn’t a game,” I say sarcastically, referencing his prior comment before I round the table on my way to the living room.
“Come back here,” Bob shouts after me, but I don’t listen. Rudolf was right. If I’m going to lie, I have to lie better than I lied about Danielle’s partying. Which means I can’t do this their way. I have to do it my way, naturally, not scripted. Because this is a game and no matter how little credit my father may give me, I have practiced and perfected my responses, thanks mostly to the press always wanting more than I can give them. I am the future First Daughter, and that’s all I’ve been my entire life.
I march out into the living room and straight for the door, with one thing in mind: what I want and should want, for that matter. Once I’m there, I open the door, and find a stocky man in a blue suit and tie on the other side, his hair speckled with gray. “Ms. Monroe,” he greets, flashing me an FBI badge. “I’m Agent Clemons.”
“Did you find Danielle?” I ask quickly, and I don’t know where it comes from, but emotion explodes inside me, morphing into anger. “Did you?” I demand, rather than ask, this time.
“No, we have not,” he replies. “But we’re trying.”
“Is there a ransom?”
“Not as of yet, but your father’s fear that you were a target last night is valid. He was smart to get you out of there.”
“Right,” I say, but the very idea that my father did anything to protect me instead of himself, pisses me off.
“Can I come in?” he asks.
“If I say no?”
“I’ll ask you to come with me.”
“If you mean to Texas, to help find Danielle, I’m ready.”
“Ms. Monroe—”
“Come in,” I say, backing into the room, and leaving him there. He’s a federal agent. He can get in the door without my supervision.
I also ignore Bob and Rudolf, who are now in the living room gaping at me. Bob hurries toward Agent Clemons. I cross through the living area to stand at the window. The three men exchange niceties that feel as inappropriate as my shower had felt, as living life feels when someone is dead or bleeding somewhere, who knows where. I hit my “normal” limit when the three of them gather in the living room and start in on small talk about the debate.
I whirl around to face them. “Can we talk about Danielle? Where is she?”
The three of them seal their lips and stare at me. Bob indicates the empty spot on the couch next to him, while Rudolf and Agent Clemons claim the ones directly across from him. I walk closer to them, into the line of the couches, but I do not sit. “I’ll stand,” I say, folding my arms in front of me. “What are we doing to find Danielle?”
I’m surprised when Agent Clemons stands and doesn’t just face me. He closes the small space between me and him. “Talk to me,” he says softly, trying to soothe the little girl who would be First Daughter into talking. “Tell me anything and everything you can remember that might help me find her.”
“There’s nothing to tell,” I say. “I let her talk me into going to that club. Obviously, I should have tried harder to talk her out of it.”
“Why didn’t you want to go?”
“My father’s running for President,” I state. “I can’t risk exposure to scandal.”
“But you went anyway.”
Bob steps to our sides. “Let’s go sit down at the table and talk,” he states firmly.
I stay focused on Agent Clemons. “The reality of being in the sights of the office of the presidency had my head spinning,” I say. “I wanted to just be a little normal for a tiny window of time, but Tobey felt it as a mistake. He kept on and on, to the point that I felt like my father was in my ear. I had to leave.”
“But you left Danielle,” he reminds me.
“Let’s go sit down,” Bob insists, hardening his voice.
“She wanted to stay,” I snap, ignoring Bob.
“So you cut and run on your friends easily,” Agent Clemons accuses.
I laugh in disbelief. “You don’t tell Danielle what to do. When she makes up her mind, you go along for the ride or get off.”
“Has she ever taken you on a ride you didn’t want to go on?” Agent Clemons challenges.
“Enough!” Bob snaps. “Either we sit down and formally continue, or this interview is over.”
I glance at him. “I’m fine, Bob,” I state. “I want to get past this and get on with what’s being done to find Danielle. Don’t you think we need to know what’s being done to find her?”
“Of course, I do,” he states, and after studying me a beat, he eyes Agent Clemons. “If this standing up and confronting her is your method of interviewing and how you plan to play this with the future First Daughter, you have five minutes and not a second more. Then you leave.” He glances at his watch. “It starts now.”
Agent Clemons circles back to the prior question. “Did Danielle ever push your limits in ways you didn’t want to be pushed?”
“I love her free spirit,” I say. “I love that she helps me see beyond the box of the presidency and so the answer is yes. She’s pushed me out of my comfort zone, but I like it.”
“How did she push you?” he presses.
“As recently as last year,” I say. “I was afraid of rollercoasters.” I leave out the part where the car crash with my mother created certain phobias, continuing on with, “Danielle made me ride one ten times until I was numb to the fear. It worked.”
His lips tighten. “Being a smart-ass will get you nowhere, Ms. Monroe.”
“How is sharing an endearing story of my best friend being a smart-ass, agent? Danielle is one of the only people in this world who knows me well enough to know that I need to push myself to overcome fears.”
“And yet she didn’t know you well enough to know that you felt you shouldn’t be at that club last night?”
“She knows me well enough to know that I couldn’t go to the club unless it was private and secure. That’s why I caved and went with her. Because she cared enough to do that for me. It just didn’t feel right when I got there. Not with Tobey yakking in my ear.”
“When and where did you last see her?” he asks, changing gears.
“At the bar last night,” I say, “I don’t remember what time I left. It wasn’t very late.”
“And what did you do when you got back to your room?” he asks.
“I went to bed,” I say, and I don’t blink. It’s the truth. I woke up in bed. Obviously at some point I went there.
“Alone?” he presses.
“That’s none of your business,” I snap.
“Did you go back to the bar?”
“No,” I say quickly. It feels like the truth.
“Did Tobey stay with you last night?” he asks. “Can he corroborate that story?”
“I’m not telling you that,” I say, unsure of what Tobey told the FBI.
“Why not?” Agent Clemons demands. “It’s your alibi.”
“It’s also the kind of gossip that ends up all over the press,” I reply.
Agent Clemons’ eyes sharpen. “Are you suggesting I’ll leak it?”
“Are you suggesting the FBI has never leaked information?” I challenge, reminding him of recent scandals all over the same press, I don’t want to be all over.
He smirks. “Are you running for office or your father?”
“Are you Democratic or Republican?” I counter.
He scowls. “What does that have to do with this?”
“I’m trying to decide if you’re trying to take down a would-be Pre
sident by harassing his daughter, or are you trying to find a missing person?”
“The FBI is party-neutral,” he assures me.
“I’ve grown up around politics,” I say. “I knew by age ten that in Washington, there is no such thing as party-neutral.”
His scowl deepens. “Did Tobey stay the night with you?”
“Don’t protect Tobey’s privacy,” Bob instructs, finally getting the memo that I don’t remember last night, while offering me half-placed guidance. “Answer the man’s question.”
“I’ve already said that Tobey was with me last night,” I reply, still concerned about the cameras in the hotel that might call me a liar. “I told you,” I add. “He’s very protective.”
Agent Clemons’ phone buzzes and he removes it from his pocket, glances at the message, and then glances between myself and Bob. “I’m done here.” He heads for the door.
I blanch. “What? No. What just happened?”
Bob’s cellphone begins to buzz as well but I ignore it and him. “Agent Clemons,” I bite out, in a near shout. “Stop,” I order. “We are not done.”
He halts and turns to face me. “I assure you, Ms. Monroe. We are done.”
“What does that mean? Did you find her?” My heart starts to thunder in my chest. “Did you find Danielle?” I ask, more urgently.
“No,” he says quickly. “We did not.”
“Then what are you doing to find her?”
“Our jobs.” He presents me with his back, opens the door, and exits the apartment.
I whirl around to find Bob grabbing his briefcase from the coffee table where it landed at some point. “Now it’s time for me to do my job and talk with Agent Clemons,” he says, heading for the door.
I don’t try to stop him. Whatever just happened, happened, no one plans to give me details.
Rudolf crosses to the door behind Bob, and locks it, but I don’t even ask him for details. He’s in my father’s pocket. It seems I’m the only one who’s not.
CHAPTER TEN
What happened next would feel important to me at the time.
This was when I found out Danielle’s fate. This was when I would fret over my choices, certain that my leaving that bar in Austin had created Danielle’s destiny, but I was still confused back then. I still believed we actually have choices that change our futures. I still believed that had I stayed at that bar with Danielle, her ultimate fate would have been someone else’s or even mine. I still didn’t understand that destiny isn’t a choice. I still didn’t understand that destiny is not fickle. It’s precise. It’s a surgeon’s blade that cuts with precision, until only those who should feel pain, feel that pain. Those who understand this feel no guilt for what cannot be changed. Those who do not, suffer.
The surgeon is immune to it all, without consequence. The surgeon is just the necessary tool.
***
THE PAST—THE DAY AFTER MY INTERVIEW WITH AGENT CLEMONS…
In morning light, comes breaking light.
I wake in a hotel bed alone, and jolt to a sitting position with those words in my mind. I don’t know where those words came from, a quote from a book I read somewhere, I think, but it’s a lie; there is no breaking light. The room dances with shadows that scream of the night hour, but a cursory glance at the bedside clock confirms the eight am hour, while the puttering on the patio door, and the rumbling of thunder in the near distance announces a storm. Fully grounded in the present now, I return to the statement “in morning light, comes breaking light” and search my mind for memories of Danielle and that night in Austin, but there is no “light” there, either. Obviously, the book I remember was a fairytale and this is not.
Glancing at the silent, but live television, a newscaster is on the screen, and the idea that the woman might be offering me updates that no one else seems willing to share, sets me into action. I hunt for the remote, looking here and there, digging around in the sheets until I finally find it under my pillow. I turn up the volume, and soon discover an oil spill to be the present highlight of the show, I channel flip, to find more of the same. Hitting the mute button, I toss the remote onto the mattress, throw aside the blankets, and sit up. I glance at the bedroom door and accept the obvious and inevitable: I’m going to have to seek out Rudolf, my guard dog, for an update.
Tossing aside the covers, I hurry to the bathroom, and five minutes later, be damned the sweats and tank, and pink fluffy slippers, I’m ready to interrogate Rudolf. I exit the bedroom to the living room and find him there, already in his basic dark suit, sitting on the couch facing me, news on the television to his right and my left.
He sets the cup in his hand on the table in front of him and stands. “Good morning, Ms. Monroe.”
“Do you have any news for me?” I ask, skipping the niceties.
“No further information.”
Of course not, I think. “I need a computer and a phone,” I say. “At least a computer. I’m interning. I have work to do.”
“Your father has taken care of your absence from work.”
“I need a computer,” I repeat.
“Your IP could be tracked.”
“I know your company is capable of setting up a computer I can use with internet access. I understand that I can’t log into my email or communicate with anyone I know.”
“Which leaves room for mistakes,” he replies. “That’s not a risk that we’re willing to take until we know the nature of the threat against you.”
He’s doing his job, I remind myself. He might even be saving my life. I get that, but I also know that I might well be the key to finding Danielle. “How long will we be here in the hotel?”
“Until we confirm you weren’t the intended target,” he states. “Or rather, until we confirm there is no danger to you.”
Which would be easier if I remembered what happened last night but I’m not about to remind a man I barely know, let alone trust, about my memory loss. “Do we have intel that suggests that I’m a target?”
“Your father is a rich man who intends to run the free world. That’s all the intel we need to be cautious under these circumstances.”
“In other words,” I say, “even if they do have intel, I’m not to be told.” I don’t give him time to reply. “I need to speak to my father.”
“He’s scheduled to contact me at noon today with updated instructions.”
Set to contact him, not me.
Someone who isn’t me might consider that to mean he’s contacting me as well, but I am me, and I know my father. My new guard has also become just another new block in the wall between father and daughter. “I’ll need to speak to my father when he calls,” I say, offering him nothing more, most especially no fodder for the gossips, before turning and I start walking.
Once I’m inside the closet-like enclosure so many of these high-end suites call kitchens, I start a cup of coffee brewing, and press my hands on the counter. After all these years, why do I still let my father get to me? He hates me. I tell myself that I’ve accepted that and that it doesn’t matter anymore. I mean it when I say and think it, then turn around thirty seconds later and try to please him. Danielle would call me crazy, and often did over my father, but all the while, she’s working for him, and just as eager to please him.
I hope she’s working for him. If she’s dead—I shove off the counter before I can finish that thought and reach for my coffee, when the sound of Rudolf’s footsteps have me turning to face the doorway. He appears there in the archway, obnoxiously big in a way that reminds me of the brick in that wall between me and my father that he represents. “Danielle’s disappearance was leaked to the press,” he announces. “We’re leaving. Per your father, we’re to be at his residence at ten o’clock.” He glances at that expensive watch of his and then at me. “You have forty minutes to dress and look First Daughter perfect for the cameras.”
In other words, my father is about to turn Danielle into a press
op, and me into a press tool when I don’t even remember what happened to her or me. I reject that idea. Rudolf is mistaken. I won’t be in front of the cameras. My father is too smart to let that happen. Which means he knows something I don’t know. I inhale a heavy breath with a realization. He knows what happened to Danielle or he at least knows something about her fate. And soon, I will too.
***
An hour later, passes quickly.
I’m now dressed in a black designer pantsuit, appropriate for mourning and guilt, with my hair neatly braided. It’s clean but once again, it feels like the dirty blonde is extra dirty. I just feel dirty all over, for reasons that I cannot explain, but desperately need to name. I’m in the back seat of a dark sedan, with Rudolf behind the wheel. Our drive is silent. Unfortunately, so is my mind, but I push through the darkness replaying what I remember of the bar. Trying to grab new details no matter how small they may be, but I can’t even name the drink I’d consumed. Each worthless, repetitive thought, drives the guilt expanding inside me. I’m guilty. I did it.
I tell myself that “it” is me leaving Danielle behind. I tell myself this ten times and still, I need to hear it eleven and twelve. Because I still feel dirty and I have a clawing sensation that I’m guilty of more.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The dictionary defines the word “more” as a greater or additional amount or degree.
I know this because at one point, my father quoted that text to me, to make a point. That point being that I couldn’t be “more” wrong on a topic, the details of which I don’t remember or just choose not to remember. There’s a lot about my father that I choose not to remember these days.
Looking back, I’m not sure why he felt the need to offer this precise definition of “more” considering his ever-liberal use of the word with phrases such as “I’m the candidate of more” and “You need to listen more and talk less,” the latter of which he’s used numerous times on both me and his opposing candidates. He was quite good at leveling someone into silence. Perhaps because he saw himself as king of the world. The truth is, I saw him just as favorably.
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