Chapter 68: Vexed

ON MY WAY HOME, I weighed the pros and cons of telling Ruthie about the Taylors, because it led to another secret I'd been sitting on. Should I tell her that Zander's father was the Collector, too? How much could I divulge if I didn't? I wondered again if I was risking her life in some way.

Before I stepped out of her car, I casually dropped the first bomb, as if it was simply another item on our list of things to bring to the beach. She gasped dramatically. The car lurched forward before she remembered to slam on the brakes and put the car in Park.

"You think the Taylors are freaking spies for the Collector?" she screamed at me.

I nodded, shut the car door, and walked off toward my front door. The hum of the car window rolling down had me spinning back to see her raising a shaking fist. She didn't leave without extracting a promise of details once she returned from grabbing all her beach gear.

She showed up twenty minutes later with the top down on her convertible and her bodyboa