Spies in Stilettos [Book Two]

Chapter Twelve: Not Really "The End" This Time Around

Hola. So this is the final chapter...I'm still not sure if I'm entirely happy with how the ending worked out but I think I wrote this book too fast (I've never written one in just a month since NaNoWriMo in 6th grade) so I'll come back and edit maybe later. In the meantime, enjoy this chapter! Hopefully I can get the third book up soon; keep watch, I think it'll be called "Spies in Skates." Though I'm kinda on a writing spree for another book I'm starting called "No Heroes Allowed" so it might be a while. Read that one while you wait! But thank you for all your support and comments this book :)

Gracias! <3 vb123321

Chapter Twelve

Not Really “The End” This Time Around

            Christmas was a very subdued occasion. Jer was still in the hospital, because it had only been a few days and the doctor wouldn’t let him out no matter how much he complained. My mom kept trying not to cry because all her children weren’t gathered under our tree to open our presents one by one, even though my other two brothers weren’t there, either.

After Mass, we visited Jer in the hospital and brought him his gifts. His wife had been notified as to what had happened, and she had wanted to come up to Michigan from Chicago, but Jer told her not to because he would be going to a hospital in Chicago a few days later. He was upset with the doctor for refusing to let him go home for Christmas, but I had learned back in October that one simply does not argue with doctors.

They still hadn’t found Zach. I didn’t know how hard they were looking because Jer said they were pretty occupied with hunting down Pazzini, even though he didn’t have the painting. I had been highly praised for my idea of hiding the original painting, though I tried to say that Kieran had a huge say in it too. Molly said she always knew I would make a badass spy, which I thought was kind of hypocritical of her.

I knew I should be relieved that they weren’t looking too hard for Zach because that meant that he wouldn’t get arrested anytime soon, but it also meant that I was probably never going to see him again. Kieran warned me gently about how good Zach could be at hiding if he wanted to, and this was definitely a time he wanted to. He still refused to tell me anything more about Zach.

“It’s his history,” he would say firmly. “It’s up to him to tell you.”

But how that was going to happen when Zach could be anywhere was beyond me.

Patrick was even more ripped up about the whole thing than I was. He had been heavily unconscious from anesthesia when everything had happened, and it wasn’t until two days later that Jer told him. I had been in the room and had to walk out to keep myself from crying in front of him at his reaction. He’d almost torn the bandages covering his arm and chest as he tried to fight Jer, who was holding him down.

“I have to find him,” he kept saying. “This is all my fault, I told him it was Pazzini –”

“He would’ve found out anyway,” Jer told him. “He’ll come back, don’t worry, he just needs to cool off.”

But Patrick seemed to have about as little hope as I did that we would see him again. He kept saying that Jer didn’t know Zach like he did, that he wouldn’t come back to have everyone yell at him and throw him behind bars. “Zach would rather move to China than have someone put handcuffs around his wrists again,” he told me once when it was just the two of us in his hospital room. “I would know.”