Page 59 of The Princess and the P.I.

“Love African tailoring. The silhouette is everything,” Maurice noted, too casually. “But you gotta watch those bulky objects in your pocket. They stick out.”

For a moment, he let the image speak for itself: the suspicious protrusion, the crisp jacket lines.

He could hear the clicks of Fiona swallowing. “I’m going to use a piece of thread, pull an idea together, and assume those vials in your pocket are the real B12 cartridges?

“The only person who knew that schedule up and down like that was on the committee. Fiona, did you give your father the schedule?”

“I mean, he needed to know when to pick me up…I…that’s not a crime.”

“It’s a crime if you knew what he planned to do. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Let me show you the second patch. The medical evidence.”

Esi scoffed, and Maurice’s head snapped in her direction.

“Esi,” Maurice said, and his tone was so honeyed it sounded over-sweet even to him.

But he had three incredibly intelligent little Anansi spiders in his house.

One false move and they would exploit a weakness.

“I asked you to check three possible reasons Robert might’ve been sweating, seizing, and exhibiting confusion.

You refused. Thankfully, you’re not the only crooked doctor I know. ”

Esi flinched. “I’m not crooked,” she said.

Maurice nodded, exhaling through his nose.

“Sure, Jan.” He lifted a folded document out of an accordion folder.

“I just didn’t want to look stupid tripping over all the big words.

” He unfolded the paper. “So, we ordered vitreous glucose testing. Any reason why someone would order that?” The evenness of his tone felt foreign.

He didn’t recognize himself in it. He was tumultuous inside, heart beating so hard his Apple Watch went off.

Great workout!

“In postmortem cases,” Esi said, and now her voice cracked, “eye fluid can be tested to confirm prolonged hypoglycemia.”

Maurice nodded again, slower this time. He already knew what was coming next. He scratched his head, though, in his best Columbo, and handed the paper to Esi.

“And what did the tests find?”

Her voice wavered, but she forced herself to speak. “Both tests seem consistent with hypoglycemic shock induced by insulin overdose, but I don’t see how—”

Maurice’s gaze flicked to Fiona.

She was three moves ahead of her sister. He knew it the moment her mouth tightened, the flicker of recognition passing through her expression. She remembered.

She remembered the pharmacy receipt he had found in her father’s car.

What she didn’t know—what she wasn’t sure of—was where and if he had put it away.

Maurice shifted his attention toward Kofi; drew a small, crumpled receipt from that same accordion folder; and held it out. A magician about to reveal a rabbit.

“You lost a month’s worth of insulin in September,” he said softly. “Three days before the TechXpo,” Maurice said.

Kofi’s jaw tightened—so small a movement that anyone else might’ve missed it, but Maurice saw.

“You’re diabetic,” Maurice said. “And—”

Fiona cut him off. “So are thirty-eight million other people,” she blurted out. The panic in her tone was the truth rising to the surface.

Maurice offered a slow nod. “Sure. But not thirty-eight million other diabetics lost a son to Robert Thorpe. Only this one sitting in front of me. That’s not random. That’s a pattern.”

You could hear a rat piss on cotton in that room. The pivot from uneasy suspicion to plain truth was heavy.

Maurice tilted his head, the movement almost impressed.

“It’s genius,” he murmured. “Synthetic insulin is nearly identical to what the body produces. You need a specific battery of secondary tests, and even then, you have to know exactly what you’re looking for.

Otherwise, it just looks like a natural death.

” He tapped the paper. “Robert wasn’t a young man.

They could’ve chalked it up to ‘too much excitement.’?”

The strike landed exactly where he wanted it to. Kofi’s eyes flicked to the crumpled slip, then over to Fiona and Esi. The air between them was too full of ghosts.

For a second, Maurice’s eyes washed over Fiona’s face. Goddamned oil painting. Wide, glassy eyes, mouth barely held closed, like she was sealing in a scream.

She was losing too many things—hell, too many people—today.

All he wanted to do was take her someplace dark and hide her away from the world.

Slip inside of her until he couldn’t tell where he ended and she started.

But she would never choose him over her family.

She just wasn’t built that way. She would never forgive him.

Whatever fragile thing they’d built—love, if he was brave enough to name it—was already crumbling. He could see it happening in real time, the way a building tilts and groans before it topples.

But he couldn’t stop now.

“Mr.Addai,” Maurice said, “I know that you killed Robert Thorpe. That’s not my mystery anymore.

When I first saw Fiona on that stage at the TechXpo…

Whew…I made an”—Maurice shrugged—“ innocent comment and you just about knocked my fucking head off. Nah, my question is why would that man let his daughter take the fall?”

Fiona’s hand flew to her chest, fingers pressing as if she could keep her heart from coming through her ribs.

Kofi lifted his gaze toward the ceiling, his lips moving silently, an old prayer slipping out of memory.

Then, quietly, almost tenderly: “Fiona, you fool girl.”

His voice, just above a whisper, cut deeper than a shout ever could.

The weight of the whole world finally settled on Kofi’s shoulders. “I told you,” he said, voice hoarse. “I told you the Lord would take care of bad men.”

Fiona and Esi stared at their father like he had sprouted a second head, some unfamiliar version of the man they thought they knew.

She hadn’t known!

Maurice felt it like a fist closing around his heart. She hadn’t lied to him. He hadn’t imagined the best thing that had ever happened to him.

Kofi eyes burned into Fiona’s. “It was handled!” he hissed, as if she could still undo it. “Why did you have to go and push the button?”