Page 10 of The Princess and the P.I.

r/AlphaBetaAlpha

Princess_PI: I just love that everyone’s collecting those little ceramic puppies #bulldogofthesoutheast. They have to be worth so much money now.

Princess_PI: The antique stores still do. I’ll post a few. It would be such a moving tribute to the widow if we found one.

After five days of sending Maurice the location pings for ten antique sales and coming up empty on Amelia Thorpe, Fiona could feel his frustration radiating through his texts. His responses had grown clipped, tinged with skepticism. Digital detective work , he called it, like the phrase tasted bad.

“No substitute for looking someone in the eye,” he’d said after the third fruitless search. “No better knowledge than context.”

Today, though, she felt good about her lead—a social media exchange she’d intercepted that had Amelia’s signature all over it.

When her phone buzzed with a single word from Maurice, Come , her stomach knotted.

Maurice didn’t seem to believe in emojis, exclamation points, or even patience. His texts were curt commands.

Come.

How could she refuse? She didn’t want to look ridiculous, but the thought of facing people—real people, who might recognize her as the woman who was connected to the death of the Bulldog—made her stomach churn.

She took her father’s Toyota and was surprised to see a receipt for a refill of insulin from the pharmacy. She had just filled this prescription a week ago.

How could he already need a refill?

This was what her anxiety did: overfocus on tiny little things she had no hope of changing. It kept her from managing the real problem.

When would Maurice realize he’d made a mistake? If he worked with her in person, he’d see it. What everyone saw. That Fiona Addai wasn’t good at anything but online snooping. That she wasn’t the person she pretended to be. Living vicariously through people who really lived.

But this is a good lead, right? At least two other antiquing influencers had already shown up and posted about the assortment at the shop.

She found a lucky spot in the front and gathered her nerves.

Her hands were shaking, and he had asked absolutely nothing of her yet.

She was so sure she was going to mess something up.

The antique shop in Old Town Alexandria was nestled on a quiet side street.

She was ashamed to admit she’d never crossed the bridge to Alexandria.

The US had an…interesting relationship to its colonial past, and the city is still so invested in looking charming with its cobbled streets and horse-drawn carriages.

The weathered antique shop sign swung gently in the breeze, the letters faded and peeling.

She spotted Maurice before he spotted her, rolling up on one of those rental scooters in an outfit that made him look like he was going to catch Pokémon. Fiona couldn’t make it out, but she would bet money that it was Pikachu on his black beanie.

But he was the professional.

He tapped on her window, gesturing for her to unlock the door. When he climbed in, he pulled her father’s receipt from under him, made a big show of buckling his seat belt, and turned to her.

“Move,” he said simply.

“Is Amelia here?” Fiona asked, her voice tight with the fear she’d somehow already messed up.

“I parked ten minutes away,” he said, ignoring her question. “You should never let a witness or suspect trace your vehicle.”

“Oh.” Her voice went high, floaty. “I didn’t—I’m sorry. I don’t know—”

“Let’s circle this block—”

Fiona interrupted him. “No. It’s fine. I just don’t think this was a good idea—me being here.”

“You asked for this,” Maurice said firmly, turning to face her. “You’ve got a pretrial hearing in less than three months and zero people digging into this family for you. Whatever it is—fear, doubt, impostor syndrome—whatever it is keeping you from saving your own life? You’ve got to get over it.”

She wanted to nod, to agree, but the lump in her throat wouldn’t let her. “It’s because it’s my life that I don’t want to make the wrong move,” she whispered.

“Let me tell you a secret,” Maurice said, leaning back in his seat.

“You’re gonna make the wrong move. You are going to fuck up.

Your fuckups will give you ulcers, angina.

” He paused for a minute. “Insomnia, visions. But you have to allow yourself to be shitty at something new. It’s the only way to get good. Get better.”

“Allow myself to be—”

“Shitty,” Maurice coaxed. “You’ve actually already popped the cherry on fuckups. Look where you parked.”

Fiona laughed despite herself, tension easing from her shoulders. “Okay, fine. And look at your outfit. Mistakes all around.”

He glanced down at his shorts. “Just say you’ve never heard of Thom Browne.”

But as Maurice gestured toward two other men dressed almost identically to him walking into an ice cream shop, Fiona realized he wasn’t just being weird. He was blending in. She, on the other hand, was easier to make than a peanut butter sandwich with her floral jean dress and ribbed turtleneck.

Maurice tugged at the shoulder buckle of her dress, and she flinched.

“You make yourself conspicuous when you dress like this,” he said, his tone matter-of-fact. “Unless you mean to.”

She slapped his hand away. “I get it. Dress cooler.”

“No,” he said, his gaze softening slightly. “Not ‘dressing cool.’ Knowing where you are. Leveraging invisibility.”

“How am I supposed to be invisible?” She gestured at her full frame—which at five foot nine was impossible to ignore.

“The space you take up isn’t the only way to be seen,” he explained. “People only expect Black folks in certain spaces, holding certain roles. You can use that. Move unnoticed, gather information. That’s your power.”

She raised an eyebrow, unconvinced, but before she could argue he pulled out an earpiece and mic set from a velvet-looking box and gestured them toward her. Fiona had the ridiculous thought that someone watching would think they were getting engaged.

“No!” She nearly swatted the earpiece out of his hand. “I don’t want to do this. I’m not—I can’t talk to people.”

His sigh was long and exasperated. “You’re not talking to her. You’re feeding me questions.”

“I—”

“No time to argue,” Maurice cut her off. “Because there she is.”

Fiona followed his gaze, her stomach flipping when she saw Amelia Thorpe. Maurice was annoyed, sure, but she could work with that. He’d be the face, the charm, the operator. She’d be the brain, the strategy.

And maybe—she eyed his slim frame with a flicker of humor—she’d even be the muscle.

Everyone played to their strengths.

—

Maurice pushed open the creaky wooden door with Fiona on his heels. A bell above chimed, announcing their entrance to thirty white ladies with the exact same blunt, salt-and-pepper, Diane Keaton bob. Inside, the air was thick with the smell of old books and furniture polish.

Amelia waved her hand, ignoring the looks from people around her, and Fiona ducked behind a hundred-year-old room divider.

Amelia was younger than she looked, though Fiona had only seen her occasionally when she showed up to holiday parties.

Older millennial—definitely cranked that Soulja Boy at parties and had an OG Facebook account.

Beautiful in a soft, yoga-influencer type of way.

She and her sorority sisters wore matching pink sweaters with pearls sewn into the collars.

Fiona pushed her sunglasses on and shot out in the opposite direction of Maurice. Slipping on her earpiece, she was surprised to hear Maurice humming softly.

“You’re live,” she said.

“I know,” he muttered and made a beeline to Amelia.

According to her profile, she identified as Black but had blond, bone-straight hair, creamy skin, and chippy blue eyes.

Race in America would always confuse Fiona a little.

Because it was a whole minefield here. As a first-generation Ghanaian in the DC area, Fiona had a standing invite to the cookout.

No one questioned it. She could roll up with her jollof rice, post up with a plate, and belt out the last chords of “Before I Let Go” in unison with the crowd.

But things got hazy when it came to who actually had tickets .

Could she invite people? Could she revoke invites? Or was she just another guest at the table? The politics of it were exhausting, and honestly, she was just trying to eat.

But blond-haired, blue-eyed Amelia had tickets somehow. She wore a top that matched with three other women in the store—a gaudy lace-and-pearls-and-pink embarrassment of a sweater.

Fiona watched Amelia maneuver around the shop’s labyrinth of narrow aisles and cluttered shelves. Each nook was crammed with vaguely racist relics from the American past—lawn jockeys and white children being bathed by Black mammies. Fiona shuddered. How could someone collect these degrading images?

“I was wondering when you’d show up poking around,” she said in lieu of a hello. She had a soft Southern lilt, but her smile was a mean, sharp thing.

Maurice walked with his hands behind his back, probably trying to curb his desire to touch everything. The way his hands reached out for and fondled everything in her home had been alarming.

“I’m sorry for your loss, Mrs.Thorpe,” Maurice said.

“Don’t you mean your loss? He was pumping more money into you than his business trying to dig up dirt on me.”

“Robert was a complicated man,” Maurice said. God, where had he practiced that voice? Fiona thought. Where could she get one like it? It invited surrender.

“I can’t imagine what you’re going through,” Maurice said.

Amelia’s lips twitched, the beginnings of a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “You can’t,” she said flatly. “I should have been there.”

“At the expo?” Maurice asked “No. Don’t start doing that. There was nothing you could have done to prevent that.”