Spies in Sandals [Book Four]

Chapter Three: I Take Up Ventilation Shaft-Dropping

Happy New Year!! Wow, it's crazy that it's 2016. I joined wattpad in 2011, dang. But anyway, I hope everyone's had a great holiday break (if you had one, if not, I'm sorry for you). I head back to school tomorrow *cue tears* but now that I'm accepted to my first choice college, I give zero craps about school and studying (not that I did before) so I'll just be writing in my study hall and my physics class and...yeah. It'll be great. So I hope you enjoy this new chapter! Please comment and let me know what you think of this new book so far.

Pic of Patrick (Liam Hemsworth) up there so you can see why you'd check him out lol.

Gracias! <3 vb123321

Chapter Three

I Take Up Ventilation Shaft-Dropping

Patrick's office wasn't as spacious as Jer's and it didn't have a nifty camera system to alert him of our arrival, which is why we caught him in the middle of an argument with Jack. The redhead sat on the corner of his desk, swinging one long leg languidly as she played with his tin of pens, and Patrick was running his hands through his hair.

"Oh, hey." He glanced up at Zach and me as we walked in. "How's the nose?"

Zach threw himself down on a folding chair without answering, crossing his arms and staring at the opposite wall. I hovered in the doorway for a moment before opting to take the more comfortable chair across from Patrick's desk; I wasn't the one mad at him, after all. The air conditioning blew against my skin, making me shiver in my tank top and shorts.

"I was just asking how the hell they let that woman in here," said Jack, her voice like sugar as her blue eyes looked daggers at Patrick. "I thought Mr. High-and-Mighty here would know, but he's claiming he had no idea."

"Okay, I did not –"

"Oh, I'm sure he had no idea," cut in Zach. "Just like he's so confused about how Ramirez knows that much about me, right?"

Patrick dropped his hands onto his desk, frowning. "Okay, that's not fair. You haven't even give me a chance to explain."

Zach refused to look at him. "Pretty sure there's nothing to explain."

"It's not what you –"

"It's not what I think?" Suddenly Zach was on his feet, his eyes blazing. "You were the only person in Texas with me, Ryan, the only one who could know anything like that – obviously you told them what happened – why the hell else are they jumping back on that rumor all of a sudden?"

I stared at him; sometimes it was so difficult to keep up with his mood changes.

Patrick's face was paling, I noticed, and he struggled to keep his voice steady: another thing that had changed. The old Patrick would have flown off the handle right along with Zach, fought back. But now he just said, "You don't understand. It's not that simple."

"Oh yeah? How much did your paycheck increase by when Jer put you on this case, huh?"

Silence fell over the room as Patrick slowly got to his feet.

"You want to repeat that?"

Even Zach seemed to realize he'd gone too far, but he still looked too pissed off to back down. Yanking the office door open, he said, "I'll leave you to type up your little report to Jer about my behavior so you can go and analyze that, too."

The door slammed behind him as he left. Jack and I exchanged wide-eyed looks in a brief moment of solidarity as Patrick spread his palms out on the desk and took a deep breath, regaining his composure before sinking back into his chair.