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

getting wild.
    That’s what I was thinking sitting in the Rice University Police office waiting for Sergeant Jim Herald. Emma Lou and I had bothslept peacefully the prior night, not a blip on the baby-now-turned-horse monitor. Doc figured this was day number 299 of her pregnancy. Anything over three hundred and the foal had a chance. Aware that I had a full day ahead, I got up early, checked on the pinto, and then called Sergeant Herald to tell him I’d be dropping by. If Faith was right and her dead sister was keeping tabs on me, for the time being Billie Cox was just going to have to trust that I’d get back to her. Right now, Cassidy Collins and her stalker had my undivided attention.
    I’d asked Herald to get an update on our prime suspect, Justin Peterson, from his professor, and to find out where the piano protégé was on the night Argus was in the audience in Las Vegas. Afterward, I planned a knock and talk. I’d knock on Peterson’s door and talk my way in. The truth is that I didn’t have nearly enough probable cause to get a search warrant, but I wanted a look inside his apartment. You can tell a lot about folks from the way they live.
    At least that was the plan.
    Fifteen minutes later than we’d agreed, Sergeant Herald, a tall, angular man with hollow cheeks and a precisely cut brown flattop, walked in the door and guided me to his cubicle. We’d barely begun talking when my cell phone rang. I noticed the 213 area code, Los Angeles, and realized it was near dawn on the West Coast. This wasn’t going to be good news.
    “Argus was at Cassidy’s concert last night,” Barron said. “You have to do something, Lieutenant Armstrong.”
    “Let me talk to her,” a young female voice shouted in the background. “They’re not taking this seriously. I want this perv stopped, now!”
    “I’m working on it, Cassie,” Barron said. “I’ll get it done!”
    “Get real, Rick. You’ve been handling this, okay, and what have you done to stop this creep?” the voice demanded. “Give me that stupid phone. From now on, I talk to the cops.”
    Barron must have handed over the telephone, for the next thing the girl said was directly to me, “I want you to take care of this Peterson jerk for real. Get him the hell out of my face. You got that, cop?”
    “Who are you?” I asked.
    “Cassidy Collins, Lady Cop,” she said. “And like I said, it’s like . . . this is it, you know? No more excuses. You need to arrest this jerk now.”
    “My name is Lieutenant Sarah Armstrong, and I’m a Texas Ranger,” I said. “If you’ll just explain to me what happened last night, perhaps I can help you.”
    “Rick told you. That Peterson guy showed up again, this time while I was onstage in front of twenty-thousand kids. All of a sudden the dude talks into my ear monitor. He was laughing and stuff, threatening me,” she said. “You need to stop him, now. No excuses. I want this guy gone.”
    This case wasn’t going to be easy, and it sure wasn’t turning out to be fun. “Did Mr. Barron call San Diego P.D.?” I asked. “Did you file a report?”
    “We’ve filed enough paper to supply the johns in Caesars Palace. Ask me if it helped. It didn’t,” she said. “I’ve had it with this dude. I can’t go to bed without figuring he’s outside my window. I just bought the hottest red Porsche, but I can’t drive it without a bodyguard because this Argus dude could follow me. You getting this, cop? You understand?”
    “Yes. I understand. And one more time, my name is Lieutenant Armstrong,” I said. It shouldn’t have mattered, but this was one irritating sixteen-year-old.
    “Whatever. I don’t care what your name is, Lady Cop. All I care about is that you catch this dude. Give him one of those lethal injections you Texans are so good at, and get the hell rid of him.”
    There were things this kid was going to have to understand.“Despite stalking not being a death sentence offense, I recognize your need to