“Have a good nap?” I asked.
“Sarah, I don’t really like to talk when I’m just waking up,” she said. “So cool the questions, okay?”
“We discussed this. I prefer being called Lieutenant Armstrong,” I said, giving the kid one of my narrow-eyed stares.
“Yeah,” she said, with a disinterested shrug. “I remember you said something about that, Sarah.”
Figuring it was a lost cause, I let it go. I’d be on my way soon and the kid would be someone else’s problem. No percentage in arguing. As soon as the hamburger was devoured, Germaine went to the door and called out for Rick Barron. The kids had been waiting outside, on a cool day, two of them without jackets, for nearly an
hour. They were so excited that I bet they hadn’t even felt the chill. One of the girls appeared to have Down’s syndrome, and the others looked as if they had various degrees of cerebral palsy. I thought maybe there was hope for Cassidy Collins when she got up to greet them, an I’m-excited-to-see-you grin spread across her face.
“I’m so, so sorry I kept you waiting. You need to come inside where it’s warm,” she said, and the girls did, climbing into the bus, where they stood shyly, most with hands folded behind their backs. One of the girls tried to talk, but her speech was too broken to understand. The woman who accompanied them translated: “She’d like you to know that they’re all big fans, Miss Collins.”
“I’m so honored that they like my music,” Cassie said. “I don’t get a lot of chances to meet other kids. It’s really fun to have them here.”
“Fun for us, too,” the girl with Down’s syndrome said. “Wait til we tell our friends. They won’t believe us.”
“I can take care of that,” Cassie said, winking conspiratorially. As if on cue, Dunn handed Cassie five copies of the same head shot Barron had sent me with her file. She asked each girl’s name, and wrote a personal message, finishing off with swirled autographs and hand-drawn butterflies. When they left, Cassie stood at the doorway and waved at them. I thought maybe she wasn’t such a bad kid after all, until the door slammed behind her and she stalked back onto the bus.
“Glad the freak show’s over,” she said. “Okay, Germaine. I’m ready for hair and makeup.”
If I’d had any right to, any at all, at that point I would have straightened that kid out. A month or two on house arrest, time to reconsider her attitude, would have done wonders for her.
“Great,” Dunn said. “Take your shower, and I’ll get everything ready.”
______
For the next hour, Cassidy Collins was the center of everyone’s attention, especially Germaine and a clutch of assistants. Once the kid emerged from the shower, she was powdered and dressed, her hair curled and arranged.
“How do we get into the arena?” Dunn asked me.
“I’ve arranged to have a Dallas P.D. officer in a limo drive us through the freight entrance and up to the gangway,” I explained. “Even though this is a secure area, we can’t take any chances.”
Dunn nodded. “That’ll help with the paparazzi, too. They swarm around Cassie like mosquitoes sucking blood. But when the right photo or video, especially one embarrassing to the kid, can fetch up to a million bucks, you can’t keep them away. Sometimes I think every minute of that kid’s life is recorded by someone for a fast buck.”
“A million bucks?” I repeated.
Dunn nodded and her chemically enhanced mop bobbed with her.
Everything from that point went off as scripted. The limo showed up with an officer who immediately asked for Cassidy’s autograph for his daughter. Smiling sweetly, she complied, and we were escorted into the arena. We headed to the sound tent where David waited. He handed me my headset, and we listened, while on the stage, fireworks exploded and Cassie sang her opening song dressed in a pink sequined minidress, black boots, and leggings.
In the audience, young girls, a smattering accompanied by one parent or another, screamed, some crying, dancing and singing along. Others reached out toward their idol. The stage rotated, giving everyone a view of the superstar, and Cassie sang and danced, accompanied by three backup singers and four male dancers. Every
couple of numbers she rushed back down the ramp past us and into the wardrobe tent, and while the band covered for her, the dressers swarmed around her. She emerged once dressed like a cheerleader and another time a hippie from the seventies, in a flowered minidress and platforms. An hour into the show, David and I hadn’t heard or seen anything alarming. Then, while Cassie was singing a pop ballad with the verse “
livin’ the dream ain’t all it seems, when at heart you’re a regular girl,
” the sound system in the entire arena died.
“What’s up?” David asked.
“Jake?” I said, turning to the sound guy.
Panicking as he looked at his dark panel, not a single light glowing, Jake shrugged.
I turned back to find Collins peering down at me, trembling with fear and looking as vulnerable as a little kid. I motioned for her to come down, but she stood there, frozen. I ran up the ramp, and, just as I reached the edge of the stage, a man’s voice boomed throughout the arena. Without hesitation, I grabbed Collins by the arm and pulled her toward me.
“Cassidy, I’m here,” the voice said, sounding tinny, unnatural. “I promised I’d come for you, and I have.”
She stopped, searched the auditorium, staring out into the crowd.
“Come on,” I screamed, urging her forward. “Let’s go! Now!”
The audience laughed and twittered. Few appeared frightened, and I saw no panic, no one running. The girls in the front rows reached out, grabbed at us and screamed out Cassie’s name.
“I’m here for you, Cassidy,” the man’s voice warned, booming through the stadium sound system, and then a horrible, taunting laugh. “You know what I’ll do.”
I yanked Cassie harder, this time getting enough of her
attention to force her down off the stage. We ran toward the gangway where the limo waited as the horrible voice jeered, “You’re mine, Cassidy Collins. Anytime I want you, you’re mine.”
David followed. He pushed Cassidy into the limo, while I watched, gun drawn. We jumped in with her, and the limo took off, gunning the engine to speed us away from the arena. When the driver started to circle back to Cassie’s bus, she panicked. “That’s the first place he’ll look for me. Get me out of here.”
“Ms. Collins, we’re here to protect you, until we can get you to the airport,” I started.
“No!” she screamed. “He’s here. Get me out of here, now!”
“Drive us downtown, to the convention center,” I told the uniformed officer behind the wheel.
“Where are we going?” he asked.
“The heliport,” I said, as David shot me a questioning glance. “We have a helicopter waiting.”
At the convention center, we drove into the back service entrance and then ran inside where we took an elevator to the roof. We jumped aboard the chopper, and the pilot started the engine. Within minutes we hovered over Dallas, the vast city lights glowing beneath us.
“Where now?” David asked, looking more than a little concerned that I’d taken an unwise detour. “You do realize that we can’t fly her to Los Angeles?”
“I’m not going home,” she said. “I can’t. He knows where I live. He’ll be there.”
“You have a whole security force to protect you,” I said.
“Yeah, and it hasn’t helped. That guy knows where I am every minute. He knows who I’m with, even if the drapes are closed on my bedroom at night. He knows how to find me, anytime he wants me,” she said. “I’m
not
going back there. I need to disappear. Sarah,
I’m staying with you until you cops make sure I’m safe. I’m not leaving your side, until that guy’s in jail or better yet dead.”
“Whoa, now. Let’s take some time and figure this out,” I said. Having the superstar attached to my hip didn’t sound like a particularly good idea. I’d been looking forward to our parting. “While we’re thinking, we’ll head to the airport in Houston. You’re safe for now. The best option is for us to get you a private plane, or wait with you there for yours to fly in.”
“No!” she screamed, tears streaming from her eyes. “I’m telling you, I’m not going home. I won’t be safe. I won’t.”
This wasn’t going particularly well, not as I’d envisioned it. I was up for getting the kid out of Dallas, but not for living with her for the duration.
“We could bring her to a hotel room, keep her there,” I suggested.
“Too many people,” David said. “You’ve got desk clerks, maids, waiters, probably a hundred employees, plus all the guests in a big hotel. Everyone knows her face. Word will be out in no time.”
“We need someplace secluded,” I said. “Quiet. Someplace we can keep her while we figure out where to stash her and give ourselves time to catch this guy.”
“That’s what I’m saying,” Collins pleaded. “Just until I’m safe. I can’t go home. I really can’t. I don’t know who this creep is. Maybe it’s that Peterson dude, but maybe it’s not. Argus could even be someone on my crew. All I know is he wants to kill me.”
I thought about it, but I didn’t want to. We’d been through enough, and I didn’t need to drop this mixed-up teenager with the big mouth on Mom and Maggie. But I honestly didn’t know where else to go. “Okay, give me everything electronic you have on you,” I said, holding out my hand.
“Why?” she asked.
“Because this guy is into technology. That’s how he’s stalking you, and maybe that’s how he’s tracking you.”
She took off her earphones and mike and handed them to me. She wore her getup from the last number, a skimpy white gauze top and skintight jeans, yet she’d somehow managed to conceal an envelope-thin cell phone in a belt.
“You carry a phone on stage?” David asked.
“Just since that schizo started stalking me,” she answered. “I thought, well, I was afraid I might need it.”
“Anything else?” I asked.
From another pocket, she pulled out a small device with a keypad. “For text messages,” she said. “I figured it was backup, in case I didn’t have the phone or he found someway to make it not work.”
I nudged the pilot’s shoulders, and he looked back. He worked for the department of public safety, and he’d flown me before. My guess is he was used to my bizarre requests. “Can I open a door or window?” I asked. “I need to dump these, in case we’re being tracked.”
He nodded. “But we’re going to have to slow way down. We don’t want anything sucked into one of the rotors.”
“Okay,” I said. “Tell us when.”
We were south of Dallas, traveling about a hundred mph, and the pilot pulled back until we hovered over the lights of what appeared to be a small town, and then over near-total darkness, most likely a farmer’s field.
“Okay, quick, or I’ll lose lift,” the pilot said. “Seat belts on?”
We all double-checked. “Yeah,” I said. “All buckled in.”
He hit a button, and the window on the door next to me eased open, stopping when I had a clearance of a few inches. The cold night air swept through the chopper’s cabin. Winter cold. I dropped Cassie’s phone, text device, and everything else out the window, but one earpiece flew back in. I threw it out again and watched it fall, disappearing in the shadows.
“Hang on,” the pilot said. The window shut, and he built up speed, pulling up.
“Okay. Now, where are we going?” he asked.
“My ranch,” I said. “It’s north of Houston. I’ll give you directions when we get close.”
“Sarah, I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” David said, shooting me one of his worried glances.
“Unless you’ve got another idea, I can’t think of anyplace else,” I said. “Let’s just keep her there overnight. We’ll figure out what to do and have her out by morning. I’ll call the captain and have the ranch flooded with state troopers and rangers before we set down.”
“Okay,” David said, still looking uncertain. “But just until morning.”
The kid, uncharacteristically, said nothing, only stared out into the night, perhaps wondering where Argus was and if he’d find a way to follow.
I called the captain at home, woke him up out of a dead sleep to fill him in, and he said he’d get right on it, sending three of my fellow rangers and a squad of DPS troopers out to the ranch to guard us for the night. By morning, he promised, he’d figure out another plan and make the spoiled superstar someone else’s problem.
Two hours later, we circled over the Rocking Horse’s back pasture, the pilot looking for a place to put down. When we finally landed, he turned off the engine, and made us wait until the blades stopped before opening the door. Once he did, David jumped out, and then I did. We turned to help Collins from the helicopter, while the small crowd that peered at us from the dark perimeter ran toward us. Mom, Maggie, our stable hand, Frieda, the captain, and three rangers, including Buckshot, quickly surrounded us.
“Sarah, what’s going on?” Mom asked. “The captain only told us you were on your way, not why.”
“Cassidy Collins?” Maggie shrieked, her face a mixture of shock and excitement. “Is that Cassidy Collins?”
I braced myself for the kid to spout a smart retort, figuring that her brain had to be flipping through a list of tart comebacks, but all she did was nod at Maggie, and then start to cry, the tears flooding her cheeks. I put my arm around her, and we all walked back to the house together. It had been one heck of a night. All I kept telling myself was that the morning would be better.
I
fell asleep on the living room couch and woke up at daybreak to find David and the captain on their cell phones pacing Mom’s dining room, the scent of jasmine in the air and her white lace curtains fluttering in the breeze from an open window. I ran my hands through my hair, wiped the sleep out of my eyes, thought about a shower but hung around long enough for the captain to get off the telephone to ask, “What do we know about where Justin Peterson was last night?”
“He’s not our guy,” he said. “We had him under surveillance all night long. He did his usual, dinner at a place near the university and then home early. His lights went out about ten-thirty, and we had two cars on him the whole time. Neither saw him leave. Of course, by then the concert was over anyway.”