Chapter 1: Dancing on the Edge
The bass was a physical thing, a thump in the chest that Agatha felt in her molars. She swirled the watery dregs of her second gin and tonic, the ice long gone. Her third, if you were counting, which she was, because counting was easier than feeling the particular hollow ache in her ribs that only a Beatrice no-show could create.
“She’s not coming, is she?” Alice’s voice was a calm, low murmur beside her, almost swallowed by a synth swell from the speakers.
Agatha didn’t look at her. She traced a finger through the condensation on the black lacquer table. “The night is young. She’s just… fashionably late. As in, the fashion is called ‘being a selfish prick.’”
“It’s eleven-thirty, Ag. The fashion show is over. You got the ‘stood up’ collection. Again.” Alice sipped her club soda, her gaze steady and pity-free. That’s why Agatha loved her. The pity was reserved for the truly pathetic, and Alice had long ago decided Agatha’s situation was a choice, not a tragedy.
Jen materialized from the pulsating sea of bodies on the dance floor, skin gleaming under the stuttering neon. “You two are a monument to gloom. Get up. Your sad drinks are judging you.” She grabbed Agatha’s wrist, her grip insistent.
Agatha’s bitter laugh cut through the bass as Jen pulled her onto the dance floor, hips grinding to the beat, while Alice leaned in and murmured, “Beatrice stood you up again—maybe it’s time to stop waiting for ghosts.”
The music swallowed Agatha’s retort as Rio’s gaze burned into her from the bar, a silent challenge in the strobe-lit dark.
For a second, Agatha thought she’d imagined it—a look that lasted a half-beat too long in a place where glances were currency, spent and discarded in flashes. But no. It held. A woman, leaned against the polished bar, one elbow on the surface, a glass of something amber held loose in her fingers. She wasn’t smiling. She was just… looking. Her hair was a shorn, dark cap, her face all clean lines and watchful stillness in the chaotic light. She wore a simple black tank top, the muscle in her forearm flexing as she took a slow sip.
Agatha broke first, turning her head back to Jen, a flush heating her neck that had nothing to do with the crowded floor. “Who’s that?” she shouted over the music, aiming for casual and missing by a mile.
Jen followed her glance and grinned. “Rio. Tends bar sometimes. Doesn’t say much. Why?”
“No reason. She’s staring.”
“Maybe she likes your eyeliner.” Jen shimmied, a full-body motion of pure, unselfconscious joy. “Or your scowl. It’s very avant-garde.”
Agatha tried to move, to lose herself in the rhythm Jen was effortlessly riding, but her body felt rigid, aware. She was a collection of sharp angles in a room of fluid motion—black leather jacket, shredded tights, lipstick so dark it was almost black. A carefully constructed armor. That gaze from the bar felt like it was seeking the seams.
When she dared another look, Rio was still there. Not leering, not inviting. Just observing. As if Agatha was a puzzling equation written on the wall.
It was infuriating.
It was the most interesting thing that had happened all night.
Alice joined them, moving with a quieter efficiency. She leaned close to Agatha’s ear, her breath tickling. “Ghosts, Agatha. You’re dancing with a ghost hanging on your back. It’s weighing down your rhythm.”
“I have rhythm,” Agatha snapped, but the words died as the song morphed into something deeper, slower, a throbbing, sensual wave. The crowd tightened. A guy behind her stumbled into her back, his beer sloshing cold against her wrist.
She recoiled, wiping her hand on her jeans with a grimace. When she looked up, seeking space, clean air, Rio was no longer at the bar.
A spike of something stupid—disappointment?—jabbed her. Of course. A trick of the light, a moment of boredom from a stranger. She was just another girl in a dark room, waiting for someone who wouldn’t come, noticed by no one.
Then a body slotted into the space in front of her, not touching, but displacing the air. It was Rio. Up close, she was taller. The clean scent of soap and something vaguely gingery cut through the sweat and perfume. Her eyes were a storm-grey, impossible to read.
“You look like you’re trying to murder the DJ with your mind,” Rio said. Her voice was lower than Agatha expected, a rasp that didn’t require shouting to be heard beneath the beat.
Agatha’s spine straightened. “Maybe I am. It’s a public service. This song is a crime.”
A flicker at the corner of Rio’s mouth. Not a smile. A twitch. “The crime is the jacket in a sweatbox like this. Commitment to the bit, I guess.”
Agatha’s hand went self-consciously to the lapel of her leather jacket. “It’s part of my constitution. A delicate ecosystem of cynicism and poor temperature regulation.”
Rio’s eyes scanned her face, lingering on the dark lipstick, the silver ring in her nose. “The ecosystem looks defensive.”
The directness was a shock. A pleasant one. “You’re observant.”
“I tend bar. It’s my job to watch people who aren’t watching themselves.” Rio took another sip from her glass. “Your friends over there keep checking on you. You keep checking the door. The math isn’t hard.”
Agatha felt exposed, raw. She defaulted to sarcasm, her oldest shield. “Wow, a regular detective. And here I thought you were just another cool, silent type brooding in the corner.”
“Not brooding,” Rio said, unfazed. “Working. My shift ended an hour ago. Now I’m just deciding.”
“Deciding what?”
“Whether to buy you a drink that doesn’t look like dishwater, or to leave you to your very important mission of mentally assassinating the DJ.” Rio tilted her head. “The door-checking has a certain tragic rhythm to it. Someone important?”
The question hung in the humid air between them. Agatha could lie. She could scoff. She could tell this arrogant, beautiful stranger to get lost.
But Alice’s words echoed. Ghosts.
Bea was a ghost. A beautiful, flaky, heartbreaking phantom who’d left her standing alone more times than she could count, in more bars than this one.
Agatha met Rio’s steady, grey gaze. There was no pickup line here, no canned charm. Just a simple, unnerving presence. A choice offered in the strobe-lit dark.
“No,” Agatha heard herself say, the word surprisingly solid, a stone dropped in a pond. “No one important.”
Rio watched her for another heartbeat, then gave a single, slow nod. She set her empty glass on a passing waiter’s tray. “Good. The dishwater it is, then. But with better gin.”
She didn’t offer her hand. She just turned and began moving through the crowd toward the bar, expecting Agatha to follow.
Agatha stood frozen for a second, the ghost on her back shivering, its weight shifting. She glanced once, a final, automatic flick toward the entrance. Nothing. Just the shifting shadows of strangers.
She turned her back on the door and followed.