Read Online The Collective by Jack Rogan - Free Book Online

Then Leyla started fussing a bit, forcing her to stand up straight and rock her properly.
    “All right, baby. Hush now,” she whispered.
    She relished the weight of the child in her arms, enjoying the smell and warmth of a baby. When Caitlin had first gotten her job at Channel 7 and begun fretting over how she would be able to afford daycare, Jane hadn’t hesitated. She didn’t have the chocolate shop anymore, so she had no job to prevent her from saying yes. No way would she let Leyla end up ignored and neglected in some germ-infested baby kennel. George had worried about how much work it would be—they were no longer young—but Jane had stayed firm.
    Jane’s younger brother, Rob, had gotten married right out of high school to a beautiful dimwit who had lasted five years before abandoning him for a lawyer. She had left him with two children, Sean—who’d been four at the time—and baby Caitlin, fourteen months old. Rob had been a strict father butsweet and loving with his kids, and they had respected and loved him in return.
    Pancreatic cancer had killed him a week before Caitlin’s junior prom.
    Sean McCandless had been serving in the Marine Corps, stationed in the Middle East, when his father had died. The Corps gave him leave to come home, but only long enough for the funeral. Jane and George were named in Rob’s will as Caitlin’s legal guardians until she turned eighteen, and they looked out for her afterward, helping her sort out her finances and do her college applications, advising her in the sale of her family home since she couldn’t afford to keep up with the bills.
    Tommy might be the only child to whom Jane McCandless Wadlow had ever given birth, but Caitlin was the closest thing to a daughter she would ever have. The baby girl Jane cradled against her now could never be a burden. She kissed Leyla’s head, and the baby shifted a bit. Her eyelids fluttered as though she might wake up again, then she gave a tiny sigh and nestled in Jane’s arms. She was truly a beautiful baby, her skin a warm shade of cinnamon she had inherited from her father.
    The yellow glow of headlights swept across the room and Jane heard the gentle purr of an engine as a car approached out on the street. She glanced out the window and saw a second car pull up behind the one parked in front of the DiMarino house.
    Then the first car started up, the headlights blinking on. Jane watched as it pulled slowly from its place at the curb and drove off while the new arrival replaced it, sliding into the spot. The new driver killed the engine and the lights winked out. In seconds, it was like nothing had happened. Anyone who had not seen the new arrival would likely have assumed this was the same vehicle.
    Jane waited, swaying back and forth with Leyla, but though she watched for several minutes, no one got out of the car.
    A stakeout
, she thought. She had seen enough cop shows that this was the first thing that occurred to her, but quickly on its heels came another suspicion. What if somebody knewthe DiMarinos were away and they were watching to see if anyone had been left to house-sit? The people in the cars could be burglars casing the house.
    Okay, so maybe she had seen
too many
cop shows, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t be true. Something odd was going on down the street. What she had watched just now looked very much like a shift change, one car coming on duty and the other going off.
    The question was, what duty?
    A few minutes later, when she returned Leyla to her playpen and went back to her bedroom to find George snoring loudly, she was still wondering. Whatever those cars were up to, they made her nervous.

Cait woke to morning sunlight splashed across her legs and a breeze billowing the sheer white curtains. She stretched, her neck stiff and her eyes gritty with sleep, but she felt good. A glance at the clock on the bedside table—the same alarm clock her cousin Tommy had used all through his high school years—told