Chapter 5
Somehow, Rio knew exactly what to do. After the group had exchanged greetings and handshakes, Rio was keeping Samuel busy whilst Agatha hung back with their mission target…or…Peter. It was Agatha’s plan all along, to get Peter in a one-on-one conversation. She had forgotten to tell Rio in the bathroom because things had gotten a little…heated. But now it didn’t matter. Rio knew.
Agatha briefly wondered if her fake wife could read her mind.
“So…how do you know Samuel?” Peter asked.
Agatha turned to face him. She was still shocked by his appearance. She had imagined a lanky man with glasses and patches of grey hair like Samuel. Peter was the complete opposite. He looked like Captain America. Why a Captain America look-alike was needed by the FBI was beyond her.
“We went to school together,” she replied.
“I thought he went to an all-boys school,” he laughed.
“He did. Our schools were run by the same people, and we did chapel together.”
“Oh,” Peter pointed a finger at her in recognition. “You went to St Ives.”
Agatha threw her hands out before doing jazz hands as if to say ‘ta-da.’
“Yes!” Peter laughed. “Were you a goody two shoes or a complete party animal?”
“Ah the only two options,” Agatha laughed. “Guess.”
He stepped back examining her with mock seriousness. “Goody two shoes,” Peter said with a smile.
She laughed again.
“Nah you were definitely a party animal.”
Agatha locked eyes with Rio over Peter’s shoulder. She was scowling at her, but it wasn’t…what was that? That look she was giving her?
“Am I right?” Peter asked, snapping her back to the conversation.
“Obviously,” Agatha replied.
“And what about now? Do you still have it in you?” His gaze dropped to her lips, then to her exposed chest.
Agatha wanted to punch him. What was wrong with men? She had just introduced him to her wife twenty minutes ago. She suppressed her eye roll and focused on the mission.
“Of course.”
Peter threw his head back in relief. “Thank god. Samuel’s gone soft but it looks like I won’t need him after all.”
He leaned forward, his lips brushing the shell of her ear. She had to force herself not to shudder, or to knee him in the dick.
“Wanna go somewhere and have some real fun? I’ve got,” he pulled back enough so she could see him mime snorting something up his nose.
A slow smile slid across Agatha’s lips. This was too easy.
“Let’s go,” she said.
“Perfect.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her towards Samuel and Rio.
“Agatha and I…are…going to look at some of the other art…elsewhere,” Peter announced.
Samuel’s eyes darted between the two before it appeared he had connected some dots. “Are you two serious?” He groaned. “You can’t wait?”
“I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about,” Agatha shrugged.
“Neither,” Peter said before he dragged her out of the room.
Agatha managed to get one last look at Rio. She was wearing that face again. Agatha pointed at her ear and Rio nodded in acknowledgement.
As Peter pulled her up a flight of stairs, she discreetly slipped her hand into her pocket, pulled out her intercom and slipped it into her ear.
“Where are we going?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Peter said.
“You’re dragging me up a flight of stairs in heels I have a right to know,” Agatha laughed breathlessly as they made it onto the landing.
Peter didn’t reply, just pulled her past statues of Greek Gods and Goddesses.
He finally stopped outside of a room called the ‘Anette Room.’
Agatha raised an eyebrow. “We’re going into the Anette Room?”
He scrunched his face as if to say, ‘Well obviously,’ before he laughed.
Peter swung the door open and gestured for her to go inside, he followed suit and shut the door behind them. He fumbled around in his pockets for something. Agatha took this as the perfect opportunity to pull one of the sedatives out of her purse.
She hissed when the needle pricked her palm as she tried to get it ready to use behind her back.
“You alright?” Peter asked through a laugh.
“Yep,” she smiled.
“Okay.” He patted his pockets. “I can’t seem to find it…but oh well.” His smile turned predatory as he stalked over towards her.
He grabbed her by the waist and was about to plant a kiss on her lips before she jammed the sedative into his neck.
It worked in seconds, his large head slumped on her right shoulder.
“Ugh,” Agatha grimaced, rolling her eyes as she tried to push him off.
Rio barged in soon after. She took in the scene and laughed.
“Took you long enough,” Agatha said shoving Peter onto the ground.
“Oh, I’m sorry. The only details I got were that you were going upstairs and, ‘We’re going into the Anette Room?’” Rio’s impression of Agatha was startlingly accurate.
Agatha adjusted her suit. “I was trying not to be suspicious.”
“Oh please,” Rio scoffed. “That man just wanted to get in your pants, you could’ve said anything, and he wouldn’t have cared.”
Agatha pulled a face at her.
“Right, I’m going to get the car. You figure out a way to get him out of here,” Rio said.
Agatha’s eyes widened. “You’re going to make me drag him outside by myself?”
“This was your well-executed plan; you should finish it.”
“What-”
She got cut off when Rio’s phone pinged.
“Shit,” she mumbled when she read it.
“What?” Agatha said.
"Hihi sent us the location…”
Agatha threw her hands up dramatically, “Yes? What’s the problem?”
“It says we have to drop Peter off by one am.”
“And what’s the time?”
“12:30, but the safe house location is in Lower Manhattan.”
“Fuck,” Agatha muttered. “Alright get the car, stay on coms, I’ll tell you where to pick us up.”
Rio nodded, ready to head out the door when Agatha said:
“Wait where’s your gun?”
Rio pulled open the slit of her dress to reveal her covered thigh. There, strapped to the toned, tanned skin sat a gun. Agatha thought it looked so pretty there, like a bow on a Christmas present.
She swallowed involuntarily.
“Did you just swallow at the sight of my thigh?”
Agatha’s eyes locked with dark brown. Rio looked far too smug for her liking.
“Shut up and get the car,” Agatha snapped.
Rio cackled as she left the room.
Agatha huffed, looking down at the unconscious Peter Johnson. This was going to be a challenge and a half. She bent down to sling his arm around her shoulder when her eyes snagged on a plastic bag sticking out of his back pocket. Agatha couldn’t help herself; she pulled out the packet.
She shook her head. It was filled with white powder. “I can’t find it my ass,” she mumbled before stuffing it back in his pocket.
***
When Rio pulled up in front of the back entrance Agatha had told her to meet her at, Agatha was panting and drenched from head to toe in sweat.
She rolled down her window. “Erm…maybe I should’ve helped you.”
“You think?” Agatha shrieked. “Just help me get him in the car.”
“How did you do it? Move him?” Rio asked as she got out to help the other woman.
“Dragged him,” Agatha said as she pulled open the passenger door.
“You…what?” Rio said as her knees buckled when Agatha dumped Peter’s entire body weight on her.
“You heard me.” Agatha walked behind Peter and pushed at his back to help get him into the car.
“What did people say?”
“There was no one on the second floor so that was fine. I practically rolled him down the stairs and pretended he fell when I reached the bottom. I did actually have to hold him up whilst we walked passed some of the exhibition rooms, but that was fine. I just told people he had too much to drink.”
With one last push, the two women got Peter into the car.
Agatha slammed the door hard letting out all of her frustration before climbing into the front passenger seat.
“We’re not going to make it,” Agatha huffed when Rio got into the car. “We’ve got fifteen minutes; it takes forty to get to Lower Manhattan from here.”
“We’ll be fine,” Rio said.
“What do you-?”
Rio cut her off. “Put your seatbelt on.”
Agatha rolled her eyes at her fake wife’s bossiness but did as she was told. As soon as she had clicked it into place the car lurched forward, and they were off.
Agatha’s hand immediately flew to the grab handle above her head as Rio shot down the street. She watched as the numbers on the dial crept up and up. Fifty miles per hour, sixty miles per hour, seventy, eighty.
“Rio!” Agatha shrieked as they came across their first car.
Rio showed no intention of slowing down.
“You’re going to hit that car!”
Agatha caught her rolling her eyes.
The fucking audacity.
They were inches away from the car ahead before Rio swerved and entered the lane going in the opposite direction. Agatha slammed her eyes shut when a car in their new lane shot towards them. She couldn’t believe this would be the way she died, at the hands of her fake and reckless wife.
The sound of a horn blaring as it passed got her to open her eyes. Miraculously, they hadn’t died.
Rio was doing ninety now.
“Do you have a death wish?” Agatha screamed.
“Oh, calm down we’re fine,” Rio waved her off. “You’re an FBI agent you should be used to this.”
“I am when it’s me driving.”
“Oh!” Rio said, throwing one of her hands up making the car swerve a little. “So, you’re just a control freak.”
“At least I’m not a-”
Agatha slammed into the dashboard in front of her. Peter Johnson slammed into the back of her seat. She looked up to see a twelve-wheeler stopping midway through the crossroad in front of them.
Rio drummed her fingers against the wheel.
Sensing what she might do, Agatha said, “Relax. It’ll move soon.”
Rio appeared to take this as a challenge. She smirked.
“Don’t you-”
The tiers of their Land Rover screeched as Rio reversed. She put a hand on the back of Agatha’s headrest as she looked behind her and Agatha scolded herself for liking how hot Rio looked when she did so.
The car jolted when Rio hit the curb, jolted again when their back wheel road up it. She spun the wheel, and the car zoomed forward now going down the lane in the opposite direction. Cars behind them honked profusely as they sped away. The Land Rover skidded again when Rio turned onto the street to their left.
She couldn’t help it, Agatha stared at her fake wife as the city blurred around her. Rio’s hair fell around her face in loose waves, her side profile was set with flawless makeup and her form-fitting red dress hadn’t shifted amidst the commotion. And yet she was driving like a Formula One Driver. There was something so inherently alluring…feminine about it that all Agatha could do was take it all in.
A groan from behind her dragged her attention away from her beautiful wife. She looked to see Peter Johnson starting to stir.
“Shit.”
“What?”
“He’s waking up!”
“What?” Rio said as she almost rammed into the back of a yellow cab. “Did you give him the right amount of sedative?”
“Yes! It’s you and your fucking driving.”
“Do you want to make it in time or not?”
Agatha huffed. She bent down, putting her hand out to stop herself from slamming into the hard material in front of her as she reached for her purse. She fished around for another dose of the sedative, whirled around and jabbed it into Peter’s back.
“Agatha?” Rio’s voice was laced with concern.
“Yeah?”
“We were only supposed to give him one dose of the sedative.”
The message they had gotten from Hihi flashed in her mind; It is imperative that you only inject him with ONE dose of the sedative.
“Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
“It’s fine,” Rio said as nonchalantly as she could. “It’s fine he’s like a bear, he probably needed that amount anyways.”
“Yeah,” Agatha said breathlessly. “Yeah…it’s fine.”
“Exactly.”
The women sat in silence, only the noises from the car could be heard.
Rio pushed down harder on the accelerator; the speed dial hit one-twenty.
***
The two women bolted out of the car at two minutes to one. Agatha yanked open the passenger door and Rio looped her arms underneath Peter’s underarms. She started pulling him out of the car. Agatha had gone around the other side to push at his legs.
Once they had gotten him out of the car they lugged him to the safe house front door. Agatha pounded on it as if she were a police officer preparing to raid a house to look for a wanted criminal.
The door swung open moments later and the two women basically threw Peter Johnson at the waiting FBI agent. The agent nodded them a curt thank you before slamming the door in their faces.
“You could’ve actually said thank you!” Agatha yelled before kicking the door.
Rio stared at the other woman for a long moment.
When Agatha’s eyes locked on to hers, she scowled.
Rio couldn’t help it, her face split into a toothy grin before she burst out laughing. She caught Agatha rolling her eyes, caught her trying to keep the scowl on her face, caught her snigger.
Soon Agatha was laughing with her. The two women were hunched over with their hands on their knees trying to suck in breaths, so they didn’t suffocate and die.
“You…you almost killed us in the car,” Agatha choked out.
“And you almost killed our mission target,” Rio replied. There was no malice in her voice.
“Shush!” Agatha hissed, swatting Rio in the arm.
“You also rolled him down a flight of stairs!”
Tears were streaming down Agatha’s face. “You bitch! I can’t believe you made me do that by myself.”
Rio was hyperventilating now. “I’m…I’m sorry. I should’ve helped you.”
Agatha snorted. “Yeah, you should have!”
The two women stood outside the safe house laughing for god knows how long until they finally calmed down.
“Let’s go home,” Rio sniffled as she wiped tears from her eyes.
“Please,” Agatha replied as she started making her way towards the car. “Hey, what did you tell Samuel?”
“Oh, shit! I told him I needed to pee and that I’d be back in a second. I should’ve said something else he’s probably wondering where we all are.”
“Yeah, no shit,” Agatha laughed as she pulled open the driver's door. “Your driving privileges have been revoked give me the keys.”
Rio groaned before begrudgingly doing so.