Page 9 of The Princess and the P.I.

But because of who his sister married, he’d been forced to acquire a far more practical skill set. Knowing the ways in and out of places. Service entrances, unmarked doors, hallways that looked like they led to nowhere but actually led everywhere—they were all around if you knew how to look.

And if he were running a three-thousand-member cult, he’d sure as hell make damn sure he had more than a few discreet ways out.

“How are all these houses on this street connected?” Maurice leaned forward, craning his neck to get a better look. Down the hall, more figures moved, shadowy and swift.

“The basements,” Fiona said, almost bored, like this wasn’t the wildest thing Maurice had seen all day. “All the basements on this street are connected.”

Maurice’s stomach tightened. “Yo, this is a compound…right in the middle of Riverdale.”

Fiona rolled her eyes, impatient. “Can you sit for five minutes?”

But Maurice’s gut wouldn’t let it go, the tightness growing insistent. He lowered his voice. “Listen,” he said, blowing the stray pressed flyaways of her hair with his breath. “Listen to me. Are you free to leave?”

Fiona looked at him for a long moment, surely deciding whether to lie.

“In certain circumstances.”

“What circumstances?” Maurice pressed.

“Work, school. I mean, my dad can be a little zealous, but he’s still African. It’s how my brother and sister got out. Top grades—ran off to college and never came back.” She looked off into the distance.

“College wasn’t for you?”

“Dad would only pay for a pre-medicine or engineering degree.”

“What degree did the Princess_PI want?”

She looked up at him again, finally resting her tapping fingers.

“Uh, criminal justice or psychology, something stupid like that.”

Maurice caught the quick glance she shot toward the hallway and paused.

His instincts told him to establish some kind of psychological safety with her.

“All right,” he said, leaning closer. “Let’s make a plan.

We need a word, something you can say if you need help—if you’re in front of your dad and you need me to do something, anything.

Say the word, and I’ll do whatever I can. Got it?”

Fiona’s eyes shimmered, but nothing spilled over. She nodded, almost a whisper. “Sure. Uh, ‘princess’?”

“?‘Princess,’?” Maurice said, testing the word. “I can do that. You say ‘princess,’ and I’m there.”

Fiona wiped her face quickly with the heels of her hands.

“All right,” she said, steadier now. “But we don’t have much time.” From what seemed at first glance to be an innocuous panel in the wall, she retrieved a slim iPad, smooth and gleaming, the screen waking obediently beneath her touch.

“Who do you want to know about?” she asked, turning back to him.

It wasn’t the iPad that caught Maurice, though; it was the hiding spot. The ease with which she pulled it from its shadowy nook. How many places like this were hidden in the house? How many secrets, neatly tucked away?

He stood as well, touching the panel, touching the walls, and then pushing them.

Something glinting behind bound volumes caught his eye.

He reached for it only to find a single family photo, the only personal item he’d seen in the house.

It showed a young man, smiling at his high school or college graduation.

Maurice pulled it out and handed it to her.

“Who’s this?”

Fiona’s expression shifted, startled. “Where did you get that?”

“It was behind the books,” Maurice said.

“Hidden?” She frowned, taking the photo from him.

Maurice glanced at the shelf, noting the dust coating everything except the spot where the photo had been. “Seems like it.”

“Can you…” She hesitated. “Can you put it back?”

“Sure. Sorry.” Maurice slid the photo back into its hiding place, uneasy but not wanting to push.

He sat back down across from her at the table and watched as she tapped furiously on her iPad.

Maurice couldn’t help but wonder how someone like Fiona lived here.

She was too bright for this place, too vibrant for the stark emptiness of her surroundings.

Her father’s rigid demeanor, the unsettling stillness of the house—everything about it pressed down on him.

It was quiet here, remarkably so. The absence of Tameka’s ghostly prodding, her whispered accusations, was almost disorienting. For the first time in months, he wasn’t haunted. It was peaceful to just be—

SLAM.

Fiona’s hand struck the table, jolting him awake.

“Maurice!” she snapped. “Are you falling asleep? Look at this.”

She spun the iPad toward him, her expression triumphant. On the screen was a grotesque array of photos: Black antebellum memorabilia—mammies, little sambos, caricatures frozen in porcelain and tin.

Maurice squinted at the screen. “Why are you starting with Amelia? She wasn’t even onstage.”

“I mean, the spouse rule. It’s always the spouse,” Fiona said, like she was teaching arithmetic.

Maurice shook his head. “Sixty percent of female homicide victims are killed by a spouse or partner. But that number doesn’t go back the other way. When a man dies, the field is wide open.”

Fiona swallowed. “That is… terrible. ”

“Yes, but I take your point.” He sighed, rubbing his temples. “Let’s eliminate Amelia first.”

He scrolled through the information on-screen, shaking off the last vestiges of exhaustion. “Okay, so Amelia Thorpe’s a collector. I already knew that,” he muttered. “Let’s check antique shops near her. That’s where she’ll be.”

“Already on it,” Fiona said, her fingers flying over the keyboard. The annoyance in her voice was subtle, but it was there. She wanted to be trusted.

Maurice smirked, watching her work. “What happened to that weird-ass fundie baby voice?”

She flinched, then recovered quickly. “It’s just a way to sound…obedient and sweet,” she said, her tone clipped.

“Shit’s going to haunt my nightmares,” Maurice muttered. The whole place, the whole situation, felt like a fever dream.

“You don’t have to worry about me being obedient,” Fiona said, looking up at him with a tight smile. And for the first time since they’d walked into the house, Maurice believed her.

“So, which one is the act?” Maurice asked, but he knew the answer.

He shifted a saltshaker between his fingers, and her eyes caught on the movement and then burrowed back into her iPad.

“So,” he said, shifting gears. “Strategy. Let’s start by calling janitorial contractors.”

Fiona laughed. “Why? Do we need to make extra money cleaning toilets?”

Maurice shook his head. “No, Fiona. Maids, PAs, valets—they know all the dirt. Trust me. We also want to keep an eye on the trash.”

Fiona bristled, her posture stiffening. “As in rotten bananas and shoppers’ coupons?” she said, voice edged with disapproval.

Maurice’s smirk faded, his tone flattening. “People throw away what they think they don’t need anymore, and we need that kind of honesty.”

“But still—”

“Hey, Fiona, we’re going to do a lot of things in poor taste. You ready for that?”

She looked up at him for a split second, and Maurice wondered ridiculously if she’d ever rebelled, like worn red lipstick—or snuck out when her father didn’t know and let someone put their hands on her.

He cleared his throat, pushing the conversation forward.

“Okay, now we look at who’s having a sale or event in the next two weeks in a twenty-five-mile radi—”

“Already done,” she said in a singsong voice and turned the iPad around again.

“Okay,” he grunted. She was hot shit behind a screen, and she had decent instincts. So maybe she wouldn’t be deadweight for three months.

“Here’s the trick, though,” he said. “Isn’t she grieving? Her behavior is going to change.”

“What do you think?” Fiona turned the tablet toward him again and this time walked around the table to look with him.

It was Amelia Thorpe’s Instagram account—an artistic post with a Bible in the background. I asked God to protect me from my enemies and I started losing loved ones.

Maurice looked up at Fiona at the same moment she looked down at him, and he let out an involuntary huff. “I guess not,” Fiona said.

Amelia was also pretty proud of her husband’s business dealings. Every time there was news of a sale, she would post like a car salesman about the vest.

“Robert would never sell the vest,” Maurice said. Anyone who knew Robert knew his vanity and obsession with being connected with the new and innovative.

“She doesn’t seem to agree. Look at this,” Fiona said, gesturing to a post.

“?‘We’ll get it next time, sweetie,’?” Maurice read aloud and made a mental note. No way Robert and his wife would have been that out of sync.

“And look.” She leaned even closer just slightly into him, her shoulder pressing briefly against his. It was nothing, a fleeting moment, but Maurice overreacted and jolted back. Just in time to see Kofi Addai standing in the hallway, watching them.

Maurice’s heart started. He could only see Kofi’s shining eyes like bullets in the shadowed archway of the hall.

Fiona flipped the iPad over. She looked guilty, too, but of a different thing.

“I think that was the twenty minutes you requested, child. You need rest.” It wasn’t a request.

Maurice stood up to his full height and slid his phone over to Fiona.

“Put your number in. Starting tomorrow we show up at every single antique sale and event on that list. Amelia Thorpe is our first interview.”

Her eyes lit up, then she caught herself.

What emotion is safe to express in this house?

Fiona and her father escorted Maurice out, both wearing broad, fake smiles. As he stepped into the evening, he caught a glimpse of her out of the corner of his eye—Fiona’s and her father’s smiles had dropped like stones.