Page 16 of The Princess and the P.I.

“No, I mean, in general, you’re a little too recognizable in those clothes. Do you always dress like this, or is this just a show you put on for your father?”

She looked startled. “What…what do you mean?”

“You obviously want to please him or not set him off. Are all these clothes for you or for him?”

He asked like he knew the answer. And he supposed he did. Something about the way she was dressed made her look like a side character in a stage production of her own life. Clothes too baggy, hair too tight. It felt like a show.

“My mom and dad felt safer when I dressed like this.”

“How do you feel?”

She fanned herself and pressed buttons. “I’m suffocating in here. Can I roll down a window?”

Maurice allowed her evasion.

They pulled up to the Gaylord. He let the valet take the car, and when Fiona stood, what looked like fifty buttons fell from underneath her dress.

She pretended not to see them, so he did as well. After some polite banter with the front desk, they found themselves standing at Fiona’s new home for the duration of the case.

The living area, adorned with overly ornate and egregiously oversized furnishings, looked like a community theater with too big a budget was putting on Bridgerton: The Play .

The bedroom, in keeping with the monarchy vibes, had a colossal four-poster bed fit for a Regency-era king with gout.

He cursed under his breath. This was what happened when he left Deya to do a job.

She would overdo it. This room defied both taste and reason.

And was more than likely outside of the budget he had given his sister.

There was an ornate basket filled with all manner of ridiculous items on the bed.

“Wow…just…wow.”

Maurice watched her press her forehead to the glass.

Below, the atrium pretended to be a city—storefronts, fake streetlamps, palm trees made in a factory.

All of it sealed under a dome of steel and glass.

Maurice had never found this quarantined paradise beautiful, but Fiona stared like the whole thing might vanish if she blinked.

She had that damned face again. He slid open the balcony door.

“You can step outside,” he said. He liked watching her hesitate, then step out, a small, defiant bravery.

Down below, conventioneers wandered in branded fleece, couples argued in low voices, and teens trailed their parents like ghosts. It was all very familiar. But he saw it how she must see it now. He felt a trickle of the same synthetic awe the hotel tried to sell, but this time, it worked.

She stepped past him and back inside and rummaged through her suitcase to unroll, of all the ridiculous things, a cloth Sailor Moon poster.

“I would hang that in a dark closet if I were you,” Maurice said.

She whipped around. “Why would I put her there? I bring her everywhere with me. I need to see her.”

“She was an inferior hero more interested in getting boned by Tuxedo Mask than saving the world.”

“Thank you, I enjoyed your 4chan talk.” Fiona tilted her head.

She stepped toward him, and Maurice tried—unsuccessfully— not to think about which buttons might be missing beneath her blue jean dress.

“Wow. Mean,” Maurice said.

“Okay, who is a better hero than Sailor Moon?” Fiona said.

“Uh, easy. Gohan.”

Fiona laughed a big fake laugh. “Gohan couldn’t even cook Goku. And Sailor would have both of them for breakfast.”

“You are insane right now!” Maurice couldn’t believe that this was making him angry.

“No. She fought an entire battle on a spaceship that had ten times the gravity of earth—”

“So what! Goku trained in ten-times gravity en route to Namek.” He dropped her suitcases, moving his hands in dramatic swirls.

“But it took Goku decades to do what Sailor could accomplish naturally in one battle. I’m telling you, Gohan or Goku would crumble.”

“That’s a red flag, Fiona,” Maurice said.

Fiona taped the poster on the wall right behind Maurice. “Perfect.”

“Red. Flag. Let’s head back to the office. We have a lot of ground to cover. I made an itinerary.”

“Could we…? Could we stay here? Your office smells like cigarettes and the chairs are really hard. It’s in a strip mall next to a vape shop.”

“Um, you continue to be hurtful, but fine,” Maurice relented. “I’ll get a whiteboard and we can start in the living room.”

“Maurice? Thank you.” Her eyes were wide and wistful, and Maurice got a heavy feeling in his stomach.

Somewhere, Tameka sucked her teeth.

“I kind of sprung myself on you. I just needed to be in a different environment.”

“You could have asked me. You could have called me. You didn’t have to try to work me over.”

“I couldn’t live with a no, Maurice. It took all my courage to pack my things.”

“If you want to be a detective, you’re going to need a lot of courage every day. Not just once in a while.”

“I keep thinking of that night when you found Tameka. That press conference. That was my North Star, thinking I could do that one day.”

His heart dropped, cold and heavy, and he felt himself recoil.

She said it so casually, like it was some inspiring story from a TV procedural, not the ugliest moment of his life, not the memory that had burrowed under his skin and lived there like a parasite.

Maurice pressed his palms flat against the table to steady himself.

“Stop saying I found Tameka,” he said. “I didn’t. I found her body . I was too late.”

He saw Fiona flinch slightly, but she didn’t look away.

Her big eyes, luminous even in the dim hotel lighting, stayed locked on his.

She didn’t get it, couldn’t get it. No one ever did.

They saw the press conference, the headlines.

Detective Finds Missing Girl . They didn’t see him being shut out, lied to, run around like a fool by the church. It corroded his gut like battery acid.

He remembered the way his hands shook while writing up his notes on discovering her, her small, lifeless body pummeled to death. Tameka was so small, too small to be an adult. Bruising up and down her torso. Who would want to beat a young girl to death?

Those images never really left him. She would always be a cold weight in his arms, a ghost he wouldn’t exorcise.

Fiona’s hand crept over his and patted him once—a tiny awkward gesture he appreciated. She didn’t say, It’s not your fault , or, You did all you could , and he was grateful for it. She just held a little space for him. A tiny crack of light in the dark.

“I won’t mention her again,” she said.

And then he saw her.

Tameka was perched on the edge of the bar, her legs crossed at the knee, one shiny patent leather church shoe dangling.

She wore the same little pink jacket she’d had on the day he found her.

Her hair was smoothed back into neat cornrows, but her eyes, as always, were sharp, piercing.

She smiled, but it wasn’t kind. It never was.

“Aww, she’s actually a nice girl,” Tameka drawled, syrupy with mockery. “Big man now. What’s next? Y’all matching sweaters for Christmas?” She threw her patent leather shoe. “Can you get it together. Someone died.”

We’re working to solve Robert’s murder.

“Who the hell is Robert? I’m talking about me. ”

Maurice blinked her away, but she was relentless.

“Oh, wait, let me guess—you’re gonna get it right this time? Gonna save the girl, clear the case, be Sherlock Lamar Jenkins Holmes?”

“I am,” Maurice muttered under his breath, barely audible.

Tameka hopped off the bar, clicking across the floor in shoes that were back on now, even though nobody else could hear. She leaned in close, intimate and cruel. “You’re gonna get her killed.”