Sarah Armstrong - 02 - Blood Lines Read Online Free PDF Page B

of the relationship between Zeus and a young princess named Io, sent Argus to watch the girl. Later, the goddess placed the slain giant’s eyes into the tail feathers of the peacock.
    What part of this ancient lore convinced the stalker to take Argus as his name was unknown, but another term popped up on the screen: Argus-eyed, defined as hawk-eyed, always vigilant. Certainly that fit Collins’s stalker, who seemed to know her every move.
    “I C U w/o ?, now & always,” Argus text messaged a few days later. Then, that night, “Do U C me? No? U will.”
    As Cassidy Collins became more anxious about the text messages, e-mails arrived from Argus-eyed @ . . . , WatchingU @ . . . , and NeverEscape @. . . . All were short and to the point. “You belong to me. I will claim what is mine,” read one.
    Some implied that the stalker was near, in the shadows, watching, like the one that read: “The drapes in your bedroom were open last night. I could have reached out and grabbed you.”
    “Who is that U had lunch w/?” Argus text messaged, after Collins left a posh L.A. restaurant where she’d hobnobbed with her agent. “Y R U w/him?”
    Then, that night, the stalker e-mailed: “Y R U sleeping w/ your drapes shut? Scared? Of me?”
    “When she saw that message, Ms. Collins was terrified. She did have her drapes shut the night that text message came in, which is unusual for her,” Barron noted. “She is convinced that the man was indeed watching her. The grounds to her estate are surrounded by a high brick wall and gated, patrolled by guards who saw no one, and we thoroughly searched, but we found nothing unusual.”
    Finally the e-mail that haunted Collins, the one that came back to her when she woke up panicking in the middle of the night, showed up on a brand new e-mail account Barron had set up for her only hours earlier: “You are dead. Argus.”
    “Two nights later, Ms. Collins performed at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. Right before she went onstage, she received another text message, this one saying that Argus would be in the audience, waiting for her,” Barron wrote. “Luckily, we’d hired extra men to patrol the theater. Nothing happened, but Argus must have been there. The next day he e-mailed Ms. Collins again, and he knew that during the prior evening’s concert she’d missed her cue for her opening number.
    “Ms. Collins has appearances in Texas approaching, and we request that the rangers do a risk assessment on this Argus, to give their opinion on the level of danger, and an evaluation of Peterson, to determine if he is a suspect,” Barron concluded on the last page of the file. “We also need subpoenas for records from all the Internet providers this stalker has used. We want this man or woman identified, charged, and arrested.”
    Straightforward request, I thought. Too bad it’s not that simple.
    Flipping again to the front, I found Rick Barron’s phone number on his letterhead. “Mr. Barron, I’m Lieutenant Sarah Armstrong, with the Texas Rangers,” I said when he answered his cellphone. In the background, I heard what sounded like young girls screaming, a car door slam, and then the roar of an engine. “I’ve been asked to review the file you’ve pulled together on Mr. Peterson and the stalker Argus.”
    “It’s about time,” Barron said, irritated. “I’ve been waiting for some action from you rangers for days. Cassidy’s Dallas gig is this weekend and she’s scheduled to open the Houston rodeo two nights later. We need to handle this situation quick, stop this jerk, before she gets on the plane for Texas.”
    I’d forgotten that the captain said Collins would be opening the rodeo in a week. There isn’t a bigger event in the city. It literally takes over Houston in early March, weeks of Stetsons, spurs, steer wrestling, and barrel racing. Reliant Stadium, the city’s massive football arena, transforms into the world’s biggest rodeo stage and, at the end of