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He put the phone to his ear again. “She said no. Yeah, I don’t think that’s going to help. Nat, she’s driving. Okay, fine…” He held the phone out to Laura. “She wants to talk to you.”

“I’m driving!”

“It’s Chechnya. You’re about the only person who owns a car.”

With a hateful shrug, Laura conceded that it wasn’t exactly rush hour. She took the phone. “Hello?” she said, just then feeling she should’ve said something harsher with more expletives.

“Hi, Laura, right?”

“How did you know my—“

The voice was swift and female, husky like a lounge singer, with a trace of Cyrillic that only Laura’s years in the mother country let her detect. “Listen, the guy who is admittedly carjacking you? I promise you, despite the mustache, he’s not a rapist or an axe murderer or anything. I’m telling you this woman to woman, sisterhood of feminism, all that.”

“How do I know you’re not, like, some girl he keeps in a basement pit and by lying to me, he lets you wear my face when he’s done with it?

A heavy sigh that Laura felt was unwarranted, given that it seemed like a reasonable possibility to her. It wasn’t like she’d accused the two of them of being aliens or anything. “Take the phone away from your ear.”

She did. Only the phone wasn’t a phone anymore. Well, it was, but the keys and screen and mouthpiece and earpiece were now showing an image, like it was a TV Laura was holding in her hand instead of a phone. She was looking at possibly the most attractive redhead since Mary Jane Watson.

“Laura, look at me. Look at my face. Look at my cheekbones. Look at my very cute haircut.” Whatever camera the redhead was using, she shifted it to take in a (very cute) haircut. “Do I look like I live in a basement, helping this dork be a serial killer?”

“No.”

“No. I’m way better than that. So, with my personal guarantee that he’s housebroken, can he stay in your house tonight?”

“Also, death squads,” Clint put in. “Keep in mind, roaming death squads, looking for me.”

“He’ll be on his best behavior,” the woman stressed.

“Fine!” Laura cried. “It’s not like I have a choice in the matter anyway. I’m assuming he’ll still shoot me if I try anything.”

“I’ll just wing you,” Clint promised. “I’m a really good shot.”

“He is!” the woman said.