“Muse.” She visibly swallowed another wave of nausea.
“Like the band?”
“The muses. Dad was Greek.”
“Mine’s Ajax.”
“I feel sorrier for you.” She sat up again, gingerly feeling the back of her head. “Oh shoot. That’s gonna sting for days.”
“I’m not gonna lie.” Ajax glanced at the wound again. “You might need stitches.”
“Perfect. Gonna have to shave a patch of my hair. Again.” She rolled onto all fours and he helped her to her feet. “I hate that.”
“Maybe you could help us out,” said Ajax. “Your cash drawer appears to have been cleaned out? Anything else missing?”
“What are you doing?” Dmytro asked. “Are you Mrs. Fletcher now?”
“Who?” he and Muse asked in unison.
Dmytro shot him an irritated glare. “We don’t need to solve the mystery. That’s for the police. Now that your friend is well enough, we leave.”
“We can’t just leave her.”
“Come, Ajax.” Seemed like Bartosz agreed. “She can call for help. I’d rather not be here when they arrive. This has nothing to do with us.”
Both men headed for the door.
“Give her her phone so she can call this JT person.” Ajax drew her to one of the waiting chairs and sat down next to her. He wasn’t about to leave Muse alone. For one thing, she still seemed dazed. “Is he home right now, do you think?”
“He’s an EMT. He might be on shift. I could try.” She held out her hand for her phone.
“Don’t give it to her,” Bartosz warned. “That’s three coincidences, Mitya.”
They rattled off long strings of sentences in one of those languages they spoke when they didn’t want him to understand or argue. It looked like Dmytro wanted to go along with Ajax’s plan and Bartosz was against it.
“What are they saying?” asked Muse.
“No idea.” He shrugged. “Except the place we were originally supposed to go got broken into or something, and then our engine blew. I guess they’re rattled because they believe this has something to do with my stalker.”
“You’ve got a stalker?” she asked.
Dmytro and Bartosz stopped talking to glare at him.
Dmytro asked, “Why would you tell a perfect stranger—”
“It’s not like it’s a secret.” Ajax smoothed a clean towel in his lap. “Everyone on Twitter knows.”
“That you’re on the run from a stalker?” Muse didn’t look like she believed him. “You?”
“Okay, I don’t have proof anyone is stalking me, but someone has been sending me all these disgusting emails, and some of the pictures in them were taken inside my house—”
“Ajax.” Dmytro glared. “Shutup.”
“See?” Ajax asked. “Rattled.”
“I’m rattled too, considering.” Muse touched the side of her head again and her fingers came away bloody. She paled. “I think my brains got scrambled.”
“That’s natural. Hold this here.” Ajax ordered her to put the makeshift ice pack back on her wound. “Thing is, people always say there’s no such thing as coincidence, but that’s nonsense. It’s bad luck, which is just a series of coincidences. Even when the odds of certain things happening are statistically improbable, they still happen. Lightning strikes the same place all the time.”
