Page 13 of The Princess and the P.I.

A woman with a hair salon cape on from the shop two doors down stood outside his office taking a smoke break, hair half blown-out Afro and half geometric braids.

She nodded, squinting at him, and pocketed her vape pen.

He liked the edges of Prince George’s—the places all of the fat and happy middle-class folks liked to pretend didn’t exist when they shouted Wealthiest Black County from the rooftops.

His sister LeDeya’s sleek hybrid in the parking lot was his first clue that something had gone wrong. He should be appreciative that his little sister could help him in his office, but her help always felt like a second job.

He pulled the door open and was assaulted with the artificial smell of strawberries.

“Deya, I don’t like those plug-ins.”

“Reece, your office smells like you’re running an old west brothel. I went searching for some floozy’s crunchy panties, but all I found was this trash can full of stale Red Stripe and half-eaten sandwiches.”

She pointed to the trash. “You know that’s not even real bread they are using on those sandwiches?”

“So what? This lace front ain’t yours, but it does the trick, doesn’t it?” Maurice dropped his messenger bag on the sorted and organized desk, and his shoulders softened.

“But thank you, Deya. It looks great in here.”

Deya flipped her curtain of silky hair over her shoulder. “So, you know your assistant quit, right?”

“I figured.”

“What are you doing to these people in here?”

“They can’t do their jobs and you’re asking me what I’m doing?”

“Yes, you’re the common denominator. Why do they all quit?”

“Because they’re quitters,” Maurice said.

Deya slipped off her sandals and pulled out her nail bag. Her feet were perched on top of the assistant desk before Maurice could stop her.

“No one can cut it here. They complain about the long hours or the close quarters or the paperwork. It’s always something.”

“They say you’re slipping. Forgetting to pay them and yelling at them.” She shook a bottle of nail polish remover. “That you’re on pills.” Her voice was wary now.

Maurice turned away from his sister, who suddenly looked ten years old.

How could he explain how bad it had been?

That he was just crawling out of a fog she could never understand.

His whole family’s default disposition was joy.

“I stopped taking the sleeping pills about four months ago. I wasn’t great to work with,” he offered.

“Did you feel…Were you addicted?” Deya crept over to him.

“I don’t know, but it was hard as hell to stop. Hard as hell.” They looked at each other for a long time.

“So, I suppose you’ll be guilting me into working for you for free,” Deya said, mercifully moving on.

“You never complained about the free casino chips, LeDeya,” Maurice countered.

He had hustled up a contract with the MGM and the Gaylord next door to investigate allegations of card counting and conference security.

He’d busted petty card counters and sophisticated wire frauds.

But nothing big. Nothing as big as what he had on his hands now.

LeDeya flipped the Post-it notes like playing cards, then looked down at her notepad. “Took some messages for you.”

“And?” Maurice pulled his sweater over his head.

“And you’re still chasing that guy across Mexico.”

“Deya, if you open your mouth to blab to Liza…”

“You know I won’t.”

He hadn’t meant for her to receive those calls. If he could keep a damned assistant, this wouldn’t have happened.

“I didn’t want you to find out like that. I really don’t want to drag all that old stuff back up.” His first taste at solving a case was freeing LeDeya from a manipulative scammer using religion to build trust. Those types of cases used to be his specialty.

She crossed her arms over her body. “I think it’s cool you never stopped looking for him…

but it’s been so long, almost nine years.

Like, is it a little obsessive?” He and his older sisters had to hop on a jet and yank back the family’s life savings—where he’d gotten a concussion and two broken ribs for his trouble.

“You never forget your first,” Maurice said.

A hard thud against the window had Deya sprawling to the floor and Maurice reaching behind him for his gun. This wouldn’t be the first time some angry spouse had tried to throw a brick through his window out of spite.

Maurice nodded to the frosted windows, where a silhouetted figure pressed against the glass. Just a patron.

Deya pointed her toes, eyes wide. “You get it!”

“I can’t get my own door, I’m the investigator.”

Deya rolled her eyes and walked on her heels like a penguin across the office, polish glinting under fluorescent lights, toes spread by toe separators. She disappeared into the foyer for a few minutes. He heard her muffled questioning over the intercom. She came back wide-eyed.

“There’s a Black pilgrim at your door.”

“Deya, be serious.” Maurice stood up and walked toward the surveillance room to view the security camera footage. Fiona’s face fishbowled in the camera lens. His camera at the front had a hidden interface, and she was looking right at it.

Curious woman.

“I am serious. It’s the woman in case thirty-four.”

“With the dress,” they both said in unison.

The fantastic material of the dress Fiona wore on the stage was the subject of his family’s wild group chat last week.

They all decided it was a glitter gradient organza, but it bothered Maurice that he didn’t know.

Deya hastily cleaned away the rest of the mess.

“She legit looks like she’s escaping from the Salem witch trials. I think her shoes have buckles. Should we let the games begin?”