Seems Like Royalty

Bonus chapter: A whole lot of missing and deep thinking

19.5

Blake Watterson

            Tick-tock, tick-tock says the clock, at the end of the river, there is the flock.

            How in the world was I supposed to figure out that stupid riddle? It didn’t give out as much information as it should.

            And I couldn’t think of anything else. Just…Just her. I couldn’t even… Dammit!

            It had been seven hours since Amber was last seen in the downtown area. The longest seven hours of my life, I think. Devastatingly long.

            The president had cancelled all his meetings today for the sake of finding where his daughter was stashed. When we called him earlier, he was in a rush to get back into the White House. The president’s advisers considered telling the first lady but then decided to let the president break the news. She’s their only daughter. Of course the first lady was going to be crushed when she hears it.

            Sir Oxford McKinley was pacing around the White House library with a phone tucked on his ear. I was watching him. He was calm on the exterior but I found him shaking. Almost every guard and adviser was inside the library. I had recounted my story to them and we were figuring out the riddle all this time. I hoped that we would find some book that might lead us to where Amber was.

            “You don’t understand, general. This is the fourth time my daughter is kidnapped. It doesn’t make it any less terrifying if you think that she’s used to this. She’s only eighteen!”

            Fourth time? She had always faced this? Horrible. All this time, I thought I was protecting her. I didn’t know that I was years too late.

            She was scared right now. I heard it from her voice when Finn called. She wanted me to save her. She needed me. She was waiting for me.

            “No. No one knew that she was going to leave like that. She asked her bodyguard to buy her something and when he came back, my daughter’s not in her room.”

            I tried to drown this all out so that I could think about the riddle. But I just couldn’t. Not when Amber was involved.

            “Our chef saw her and some of the guards did too. They let her go that easily. No, general. I think this is not the time to throw away these people just because of my daughter’s stubbornness. Yes, they did a poor job but firing them would not bring back my daughter now.”

            This news was held back from the media. We were all sure that the government would gain low ratings if they knew that even the president’s daughter got kidnapped. Gets kidnapped, even. The countrymen would believe that if the president couldn’t even protect his own family, how could he protect an entire nation?

            The sound of the door opening distracted everyone inside the library. It was the first lady.

            “What is happening? Oxford?” She called out to his husband. “Why are you all here? Have you seen Amber? She’s not in her room.”

            All eyes seemed to be on the president this time. “Morisette, honey, about Amber…”

            Her eyes swept the rest of us nervously. “Oxford, what about my daughter? Oxford, tell me what’s happening.”

            “She was kidnapped earlier this morning. Apparently, she made Blake do an errand then she drove off with the BMW. And that’s the last time she was seen.”