Page 30 of The Princess and the P.I.

r/PrivateDicksandJanes

Princess_PI: If you were heading this case the wrong man would be behind bars. Just like the Melody case.

Princess_PI: Don’t piss off the moderator. This is your first warning.

The next day, Fiona sat back down and reinitiated her series of sighs.

Since Amelia had shut them out, Maurice had explained—very grimly—that they’d need to move fast or he’d have to take on a larger caseload and back-burner this investigation.

Back-burner.

The words hit her like a slammed door. My freedom. A scheduling inconvenience.

What stung more was realizing that this case wasn’t the single, all-consuming focus of Maurice Bennett’s life.

Not like it was for her. For six weeks, they’d been inseparable, fused by necessity.

He had consumed her—her thoughts, her deeds, even her dreams. They’d clocked more hours together in a month and a half than some married couples managed in a year.

She had to crack Sara Al Haddad. Break her open. Fiona’s life depended on it.

As if reading her mind, Maurice stood abruptly from his chair, stretching his frame with feline precision.

“How’s it going with Sara?” He paused, his dark eyes fixed on her. “If I hear that little sigh again, I swear I’m turning you in myself.”

His tone was light, but Fiona heard:

Move faster.

Do better.

Maurice walked over to her table and reached over her shoulder to point to the screen.

Fiona explained the chaos.

“These are burner accounts on most of the social media sites. I’m logging in and systematically friending everyone in her circle. When I finally DM her, she’ll place me with that friend group.”

“What if these are college friends?”

“I’ll say I was a few years behind them.” Fiona shrugged.

“This is a good organizing system.” Maurice complimented her Excel. He always made her feel smart about things she thought were basic. He made her feel like she belonged here.

“I’m going to go scare the shit out of case twenty-three’s grandson. You want to come?” Maurice asked, twisting in front of the mirror.

He owned an arsenal, a frightening collection of firearms that he gave really cute names like Nina and Blicky. And he sometimes matched them with his outfit like he was filming a get-ready-with-me video.

“No, I want to stalk Sara down to the second.”

Maurice had barely been gone ten minutes when Fiona’s phone buzzed. She picked it up, her heart steadying a little at the familiar name on the screen.

“Esi?” Fiona greeted, with a note of hesitation in her voice. She always felt a bit on edge around her older sister, careful to sidestep the conversational land mines Esi so effortlessly planted.

“Oh my god,” Esi said, her excitement bubbling through the line. “You’re going to kiss me.”

“What?” Fiona blinked, thrown off.

“I got my hands on the tox report.”

“How?” Fiona asked, her voice dropping. She paced the room, her free hand brushing against her hip like it needed somewhere to go.

“Still got a few loyal friends,” Esi said casually.

“The church?”

“No, medical school.”

Fiona was about to press for more details, when her phone buzzed again. “Hold on, there’s someone on the other line,” she said, clicking over without waiting for a reply.

“Hello?”

There was no immediate answer. Just a hollow, rattling breath that dragged across her nerves like a blade. Then a distorted, raspy voice: “Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry—”

Her hand shot out instinctively, slamming the hang-up button. Her pulse raced. She stared at the phone in her hand like it had betrayed her.

She’d left Esi hanging. When the phone buzzed again, she didn’t answer. Instead, she turned it off completely, pressing it face down onto the desk like it might crawl away on its own.

She was a sitting duck in a storefront window. Someone was watching her, waiting until she was alone.

Fiona moved to the back surveillance room, locking the door behind her.

The small room smelled faintly of stale coffee and electronics.

She sat down and clicked through videos of the TechXpo, her fingers trembling as she took notes.

The recordings offered a distraction, but too little. She tried to steady herself.

Then the door handle rattled.

Her lungs clamped tight.

“Fiona.” Maurice’s voice was muffled but unmistakable.

She bolted to the door, unlocking it with shaking hands. As soon as she saw him, the fear in her chest unwound just a little, but not enough.

“Whoa,” he said, stepping in and reading her face like a map. “What the hell happened?”

“Nothing,” she lied, too quickly. “I’m just…I’m glad you’re back.”

Maurice’s skepticism was apparent. “Why was your phone off? I needed your lunch order.”

“Too many bings and buzzes,” she said, attempting a weak smile. “I’m trying to focus.”

His jaw tightened. “Keep your phone and location on. And keep your phone charged.”

He set the food down, unwrapping something that smelled faintly of onions and grease. “You know,” he said after a beat, “I’ve closed all my open cases. Thanks to you.”

“Except the one,” she said softly.

“Except the one,” he agreed. “Just—thank you. And if you want to tell me anything, or if something I’m doing is making you uncomfortable, you can let me know. If you need me to stop—”

She moved toward him before he could finish, almost tackling him with her urgency. “No, no. Everything you’re doing is…great. Please, keep…”

She trailed off. They had somewhere along the line formed some tacit agreement to not mention him sleeping with her.

Fiona cradling him in her arms and fitting herself into his hollows.

They weren’t mentioning how tight he pressed into her in the pitch-blackness.

The thick heat of him pulsing at her hip.

He dropped the subject and they both got back to work.

The rhythmic clicking of the mouse, combined with the dull hum of the computer, was occasionally interspersed with fire trucks zipping by, a just-married limo clanking cans, and a slim light-up truck advertising a lawyer.

Despite the monotony of the task, Fiona was starting to enjoy the social media snooping a lot more than she should.

But after eleven p.m. the files and the paperwork were starting to drive her a little crazy. The endless rows of text were starting to dance in front of her face.

“Maurice, I don’t think I can look at one more thing.”

“Are you ready to go home?” He continued typing, not looking up from the computer.

The short answer to his question was No, never.

Maurice looked up from his screen and squinted his eyes. “I think I may have something if I can trespass on your time for a while longer. The church tithing files you got for me are good.”

If he was looking into the financial history of the church, there would be plenty of shady stuff for him to find. It had been nothing for her to lift the files from her father’s cabinet.

“They are expecting some big money soon. Is it related to Robert’s death? Maybe. You can hang out here while I try to close up.” Maurice stood up and moved toward the waiting room. With a little couch fluffing and shifting, he turned the office’s plush velvet couch into an impromptu lounge area.

He stepped into a closet and returned with something behind his back. “I also…I, uh, found the material of your dress. Or at least it’s close and I had excess…” He coughed.

It was a little quilt, smaller than a hand towel. The top of the quilt was the shimmery sheen of the dress she wore at the TechXpo.

“This is gorgeous, Maurice.” Fiona did not dare look up at him. A child would have been able to read her eyes.

“Uh, yeah, it turned out really well. I was curious. About the material. So, yeah, thank you for…” He still couldn’t produce the words helping me sleep , so he just stopped.

She fought the urge to rub the silk quilt with her palms again. She could feel the different textures of the fabric, some smooth and sleek, others slightly nubby, like raw silk. This was too lavish, too perfect.

“Thank you. How long did it take you to make this?” Fiona asked.

“I got it done in a weekend.” He covered his face with his hands. “Fiona, my god, stop making that face. It was nothing, I promise. Just something to do with my hands.”

“Well.” She folded it reverently. “Thank you.”

If he was trying to seduce her, he didn’t have to do much actually.

She was half his when he cut through the crowd in that leather jacket.

Her father’s stories of the outside world were full of men taking advantage of innocent women.

Right now, Fiona would pay real American dollars for Maurice to take advantage of her innocence.

Maurice dimmed the lights, queuing up one of the five or so true crime podcasts she liked on his iPad. Fiona relaxed into the seat as the familiar voices of a raspy ASMR woman and a brash former FBI agent filled the room.

“Make yourself a drink from the minifridge or a snack from the pantry. My sister packed all manner of healthy shit in there.”

“Trying to get you to stop your greasy take-out habit, I assume,” Fiona said.

“The virtue of fast food is in the name.”

Maurice tapped the wall and sat in the back of the office, sifting through the church files she had pilfered for him, the white of the computer screen reflecting off his reading glasses.

Fiona caught him intermittently stopping to listen and catch the final reveal at the end of the episode.

By the time she was in the middle of the second episode, he was standing by the couch.

“This episode was unreal”—Maurice tossed a small ball in the air—“murder in the mermaid community down in Florida. Shit was wild,” he said.

She uncrossed her legs on the couch, and Maurice moved to sit next to her.

They listened to half an episode before he lay down, resting his head in her soft lap and folding his legs over the curled arm of the couch.