Chapter 4: Dangerous Games
The email from Miranda Colson sat in Rio’s inbox like a live grenade. Subject line: Introduction from Agatha Vance. She’d stared at it for two days, her finger hovering over the delete key. Instead, she’d drafted a painfully professional reply, attaching her resume, citing Agatha’s name. The response had been swift and positive. A video interview was scheduled for next week. The professionalism of it all was a layer of ice over a raging, shameful fire.
She didn’t hear from Agatha. The silence was a physical weight. She threw herself into her thesis, compiling data until her eyes burned. She avoided Ellie, spending hours on campus, but the house, their shared house, was a minefield of ordinary sounds—Ellie’s laughter, the blender for her smoothies, her off-key singing in the shower. Every cheerful noise was a lie Rio was living inside.
It was Friday when her phone finally vibrated with a new message. Not a text. An email. From Agatha’s work address.
Rio,
The house I mentioned is going on the market. It requires a final assessment. I’ll be there this afternoon after three. It’s a unique property. I thought your environmental perspective might be of interest. No obligation.
The address is 27 Crocus Lane.
Agatha
It was so cold. So formal. A business proposition layered over a summons. No obligation. The biggest lie she’d ever been told.
Rio knew she shouldn’t go. She knew it in the rational part of her brain that was shrinking daily. But the other part, the part that remembered the feel of a hotel bedsheet against her cheek and the sound of Agatha coming apart, was already calculating travel time. Crocus Lane was in the older, wooded outskirts of the city, a thirty-minute bus ride.
She told Ellie she was going to look at a potential field site.
The house was a relic. Set back from the road at the end of a long, gravel drive overgrown with weeds, it was a low-slung, modernist thing from the late 60s, but time had not been kind. The famous avocado-green siding was peeling in long, sad strips. The huge windows were cloudy with grime. A porch swing hung by one rusted chain. The air smelled of damp leaves, decay, and, as she pushed open the heavy, unlocked front door, of stale whiskey and something else—sweet, fungal, like forgotten potpourri.
She stepped inside. The place was a time capsule of bad decisions. Shag carpet the color of dried blood. A stone fireplace littered with mouse droppings. A huge, hideous painting of a weeping clown dominated one wall. It was profoundly, utterly sad.
“It’s something, isn’t it?”
Agatha’s voice came from the archway that led to the kitchen. She was leaning against the frame, dressed in dark jeans and a simple black sweater. No suit. Her hair was down. She looked tired, and real, and more dangerous than ever.
“It’s a nightmare,” Rio said, her voice echoing in the empty space.
“The client inherited it. Wants it gone. I have to document its current state before the wrecking ball arrives.” Agatha pushed off the frame and walked toward her, her boots silent on the shag. “Thank you for coming.”
“You didn’t give me much choice.”
“There’s always a choice.” Agatha stopped a foot away. The stale air seemed to tighten around them. “You chose to walk in.”
Rio could smell her now, cutting through the house’s melancholy scent. Clean skin, subtle perfume, coffee. The familiar, devastating aroma of her. The week of silence, of professional emails, crumpled.
Agatha reached out and brushed a curl from Rio’s forehead. The touch was electric, a spark in the dust-filled gloom. “I thought about you. Under that table in the bar. On your knees in the hotel. In your own bed, touching yourself while I talked to my daughter.”
The words were a violation. Rio flinched, but her body betrayed her, a low thrum of arousal igniting in her belly. “Stop it.”
“Why?” Agatha’s hand moved to the back of Rio’s neck, fingers threading into her hair. “It’s the truth. It’s the only true thing in this godforsaken room.” She pulled Rio in, and their mouths met.
This kiss wasn’t like the others. It wasn’t exploratory or hungry. It was desperate. It tasted like anger and longing and the sour dust of the dying house. Rio groaned into it, her hands coming up to clutch at Agatha’s sweater. She was pushed backward, her heels catching on the shag, until her back hit something hard and cold.
The refrigerator. An ancient, mustard-yellow monstrosity.
Agatha shoved against her, pinning her there, her thigh sliding between Rio’s legs. She bit Rio’s lower lip, hard enough to sting. “You’re wearing too many clothes,” she breathed, her hands tugging at the waistband of Rio’s jeans.
Rio fumbled with the button, her fingers numb. Agatha swatted them away and undid it herself, yanking the zipper down with a harsh rasp. She shoved her hand inside, past the band of Rio’s underwear, her fingers delving through coarse curls to find her already wet and hot.
“Fuck,” Agatha muttered, her forehead dropping to Rio’s shoulder. “You’re always ready for me.”
She worked two fingers inside, a swift, deep penetration that made Rio cry out, the sound swallowed by the vast, empty house. Agatha set a brutal, immediate rhythm, her fingers curling, pumping, the heel of her hand grinding against Rio’s clit. It was too much, too fast, a punishment and a reward.
“You want to come?” Agatha growled in her ear. “Come for me. Right here. In this ugly, dead house. Mark it.”
Rio was already close, the tension coiling impossibly tight. The setting—the peeling wallpaper, the dusty sunlight through dirty windows, the smell of decay—made it feel feral, illicit in a new way. This wasn’t a rented room. This was a tomb they were defiling.
Agatha’s thumb pressed hard circles. “Do it. Let me feel you come on my hand.”
Rio shattered. Her orgasm ripped through her with a silent, seizing intensity. Her knees buckled, and only Agatha’s body and the fridge kept her upright. She pulsed around Agatha’s fingers, wave after wave of sharp, draining pleasure. Agatha held her through it, her breathing ragged against Rio’s neck.
As the last tremors faded, Agatha slowly withdrew her fingers. She brought them to her own mouth, her eyes locked on Rio’s, and sucked them clean. The obscenity of the gesture in the gloomy kitchen sent a fresh, weak jolt through Rio’s spent body.
The slam of a car door outside was as loud as a gunshot.
They froze.
The crunch of gravel on the drive. Footsteps on the porch.
“Mom? You in there? The door was open!”
Ellie’s voice. Bright, cheerful, echoing in the hollow space.
Panic, pure and icy, flooded Rio’s system. Her eyes flew wide. Agatha’s face went pale, her expression morphing from sated lust into sheer, undiluted terror.
“Under the table,” Agatha hissed, shoving Rio’s jeans back up roughly. “Now.”
The kitchen table was a heavy, round thing of dark wood, draped with a moth-eaten floral cloth that reached nearly to the floor. Rio scrambled, her legs like jelly, and dove underneath, pulling the cloth closed just as the front door groaned open.
“Mom? Wow, this place is a trip!”
Ellie’s footsteps clicked on the hardwood of the living room, then muffled on the shag. Rio crouched under the table, her back against a cold central pedestal, knees drawn to her chest. She could see a slice of the room through a gap in the fabric: Agatha’s boots, standing rooted by the fridge.
“Ellie.” Agatha’s voice was a masterpiece of strained calm. “What are you doing here?”
“I was at the vintage market out on Route 9 and remembered you said you’d be at the Crocus Lane property. Thought I’d surprise you! Check out this find.” Fabric rustled. “A suede jacket with the most amazing fringe. Seventies, obviously.”
Rio saw Agatha’s boots move, taking a few steps toward the living room, putting distance between herself and the table. “It’s… very you.”
“Right? So, what’s the verdict on this palace of horrors? Tear it down?”
“That’s the plan. It’s structurally unsound. Full of mold.”
“Smells like my last boyfriend’s basement.” Ellie laughed. Her own boots—scuffed Doc Martens—came into Rio’s narrow field of view. She was pacing. “God, it’s depressing in here. Who lived here, a sad clown?”
“Something like that.”
“You okay, Mom? You seem… tense.”
“I’m fine. Just a long week. The conference was draining.”
“You never talk about the conference.”
“There’s nothing to talk about. Lawyers talking about liability.”
Rio held her breath. The dust under the table tickled her nose. She pressed her fist against her mouth to stop a sneeze. The smell of her own arousal was still thick on the air, mixed with the house’s smells. Could Ellie smell it? Could she sense the sex in the room?
Ellie’s boots stopped near the table. Rio could see the frayed hem of her jeans. “You know, it’s weird. Rio’s been weird too. All jumpy. Skipping out. I think she might be seeing someone secretively.”
Under the table, Rio’s heart stopped.
“Oh?” Agatha’s voice was dangerously neutral.
“Yeah. Probably some grad student who’s married or something. She gets this look.” Ellie sighed, her boots shifting. “Anyway, I won’t keep you. Just wanted to say hi. Wanna get a coffee? There’s a place back toward town.”
“I… I have a few more things to document here. Rain check?”
“Sure. No problem.” Ellie’s tone was light, but Rio knew her. There was a flicker of disappointment. “Love you, Mom.”
“Love you too, sweetheart.”
The boots moved away. The front door opened, flooding the room with cold, fresh air for a moment, then closed with a definitive thud.
Silence.
A long, heavy minute passed. Then Agatha’s boots approached the table. The floral cloth was lifted.
Rio looked up, squinting in the light. Agatha’s face was ashen, her composure completely gone. She looked ravaged.
“You need to leave,” Agatha whispered. “Right now. Out the back.”
Rio crawled out, her body stiff with terror and cramp. She couldn’t look at Agatha. She fumbled with her zipper, finally fastening her jeans. Her hands were shaking.
“The email for the interview,” Agatha said, her voice now hollow. “You should prepare. Miranda is sharp. Don’t… don’t mention this.”
It was the final blow. The reduction of everything they’d just done—everything they were—to a professional tip. A stain to be hidden.
Rio walked stiffly toward the back door she saw off the kitchen. She pushed it open, the hinges screaming. She didn’t look back.
She stepped into the overgrown backyard, the cold air slapping her feverish skin. She heard the crunch of Ellie’s car pulling away from the front. She leaned against the rotting side of the house, lungs heaving, and vomited into a patch of dead nettles.
When there was nothing left, she spat, wiped her mouth, and began the long walk back to the road. In her pocket, her phone buzzed. A text from Ellie, sent minutes ago.
Hey, weird vibe at my mom’s work site. You free tonight? Need to laugh. Also, I think I left my favorite scarf under your bed? Can you check?
Rio stared at the screen until the words blurred. The world had narrowed to a single, choking point of dread. She looked back at the ugly green house, a monument to decayed secrets. Her secrets. And she knew, with a certainty that turned her bones to ice, that the foundation was cracking. It was only a matter of time before everything collapsed.