Free Sarah Armstrong - 02 - Blood Lines by Kathryn Casey Page A

forward to catch it. Still singing, she glanced at her hand and saw red, a bloody smudge. She needed to be more careful. Leave the roses and take the daisies, she thought. Remember the thorns.
    Per the routine, the dancers shadowed the superstar stage right, and she spun and fell back into a web of their bodies. They held her up by her extended arms, an ear-to-ear smile resolutely anchored on her face. Her hand throbbed and tears formed in her eyes, but from the audience, Cassidy appeared to be exhilarated by the excitement of being on stage.
    In truth, she couldn’t get him out of her mind.
    Five rows back, she thought she saw a glint in the audience, something bright. She wondered if it could be a knife, and if the hand holding it belonged to Argus. It passed quickly. Silly, she decided. Probably just one of those battery-operated fans, the ones with the whirly bird tips that light.
    She shook it off.
    Calm down , she thought. I have to relax before I drive myself crazy.
    As the evening wore on, she sang, danced, and fought back waves of anxiety. Until, nearly an hour into the concert, after the fourth costume change, Cassidy realized she had only fifteen minutes left on stage. The concert was nearly over. For the first time that day, she began to loosen up. One more concert and nothing had happened. I’m freaking myself out for no reason, she thought. This creep just gets off scaring people. If so, she assured herself, Argus had picked on the wrong girl. Life had fed Collins more than her share of pain, and she’d always survived. She needed to take it oneday at a time, and before long the stalker would be nothing more than a bad memory.
    Suddenly, her in-ear monitor went dead, quiet.
    Cassidy turned and looked at Jake, the audio guy, off in the wings, and saw him frantically search the sound mixer, flipping switches. The lights had all gone out, and nothing was working. He looked up at her and shook his head. Not a clue , he seemed to be saying.
    Then, as unexpectedly as it clicked off, the equipment flicked back on. Dancing and singing her way across the stage, Cassidy trembled with relief. It was nothing, she chastised herself, a computer glitch.
    Shaking it off, she sang as the dancers formed a circle around her for the song’s finale. Cassidy moved into place, and the muscular young men dropped to their knees. Four grabbed her by her calves and thighs, lifting her up, until two moved beneath her and slipped her onto their shoulders. Cassidy thrust her arms up into a triumphant “V” and belted out the final refrain, just as again, without warning, her in-ear monitor went stone silent.
    As the dancers walked the stage, displaying her in front of more than twenty thousand screaming fans, Cassidy’s monitor snapped back on. Rather than music, she heard a voice, an unfamiliar voice.
    “I’m here,” he taunted, mocking her. He let lose a thick-throated laugh, and then whispered, “I’m here, and I’ve come for you.”

 
     
     
Nine
     
     
     
    T here’s no doubt about it: it’s easier to work one case at a time than balance multiple investigations. If I ever meet a cop who routinely has the luxury of focusing entirely on a single case, I’m going to leave the rangers and sign on with her department, whether it’s Detroit, Miami, or Sacramento. So far, I sure haven’t been that lucky. That is, unless I’m in crisis mode, like last year on the Lucas case. That’s different. But on your average day I work two, often three cases. Then there are the files sent in from across the state, the ones that pile up on my desk, waiting to be reviewed. Not to mention the cold cases, those I’ve never been able to solve. Some nights, one or another wakes me up in a sweat, reminding me that I haven’t given the victims justice. It’s a juggling act, trying not to let any case fall, afraid the one I drop is the one that takes me down. I love my work, but I’d only been back on the job a day, and it was already