There was a knock at the front door. Casey undid the locks and saw it was Antonio, he was early.
"Hey Casey, how're you doing?" he asked as he entered the apartment, both hands in his jacket pockets.
"Not really sure," Matt answered.
Antonio looked past him and saw another person in the room. "Kelly."
Severide hadn't gotten around to asking Casey how he wanted to do this, and decided the best thing for him to do was vacate the situation immediately to make it less awkward for Casey.
"I'll-be back later," he said as he moved to grab his jacket.
"No, don't," Casey told him, "you might as well hear this too."
"I know how hard this is for you, Matt," Antonio said, "nobody's expecting you to tell us anymore than you can. Just anything new you can tell me, it'll help us know what we're looking for."
"Okay," Casey sighed as they sat down, he and Kelly were seated on the couch, Antonio sat in a chair facing Casey.
"Just start whenever you're comfortable," Antonio told him.
Casey was silent for a minute, and finally he said, "The guy who attacked me...he was...maybe half a foot taller than me...slightly bigger than me...I don't know, I'd guess somewhere around 200 pounds...he had..."
Casey's face went blank for a moment, and both Kelly and Antonio noticed, but finally he spoke.
"Short...dark hair...brown...he was clean shaven...I'd guess...late 30s...maybe early 40s...white...white but tanned..."
"And you spoke with him?" Antonio asked.
"Briefly."
"Was there anything about his voice that stuck out? A lisp, an accent?"
"I...I...don't know," Casey was visibly struggling to recall, "I think there was an accent but I'm not sure."
"Alright, that's okay...do you think you could identify the voice if you heard it again?" Antonio asked.
Casey thought about it and slowly nodded his head. "Yeah, I think so."
"That's something."
"Uh...when you guys were here a few weeks ago...I lied about something to Voight."
"Okay," Antonio didn't seem surprised, "what was it?"
"When we were in the bedroom...he told me to look around and see if anything was missing...clothes...personal effects...I said no."
"Something was taken?" Antonio asked.
"Not from here," Casey looked down as he reluctantly answered, "During the attack...he took my...he took my clothes off...and...he kept my...my underwear, and my work boots...we never found them after he left."
"I realize this is hard, Casey, but this is important, this could help break the case," Antonio told him.
"I know, and I know I should've told Voight in the beginning, but I didn't," Casey was becoming increasingly anxious and almost panic stricken as he struggled to keep talking.
"It's alright, Matt, this is the worst thing anybody has to talk about, we get it," Antonio assured him. "Do you need to take a break?"
Casey shook his head, but the words didn't come right away. "He...he said...he said..."
That voice. That alone was enough to wake him up countless times screaming over the past 3 weeks. Like the voice of the devil himself. There was no way he could ever describe it to anybody.
"He said...when he was finished with me...I was still his property...even when he sent me down to hell he would still own me, that he was in every single cell of my body and there was no escape."
Kelly was finding it harder to breathe as he sat beside Casey and watched this unfold. There was nothing more he wanted at that moment than to reach over and hug Casey and assure him it was all over, but he kept his distance and waited to see what happened next, if Casey could possibly continue after that.
Even Antonio was visibly struggling not to react to this newfound information.
"Okay...uh," he cleared his throat, "I need to ask Kelly some questions now, and I really need it to be one on one so if we find this guy, no lawyer can ever say that you were led or coaxed."
Casey nodded in understanding and moved to get up, but Antonio clarified, "Actually, Severide, if you could come out to the car with me for a few minutes, this won't take long."
"Yeah, sure," Kelly got up and told Casey, "I'll be right back."
Casey stayed where he was and just nodded.
"Please tell me you have something," Kelly said when they closed the doors, "I'm not sure how much longer he can take this."
"Unfortunately there are a lot of open cases with some matches, but so far nothing definite," Antonio said.
"How can there be that many and you still don't know anything?" Kelly asked.
"Kelly, there are to date over 200,000 unsolved murders in this country just in the last 35 years and counting," Antonio told him, "And even with all the advances forensics and DNA evidence come up with, a lot of them are still going to remain unsolved until a miracle happens. We've been running what we've got against cases all over the country, and we've come up with three that seem most likely to fit the pattern. Three construction workers, all in their 30s, all tortured, stripped, sodomized, strangulated, all dumped at construction sites, posed postmortem. Their vehicles were at the sites, their keys were nearby, their clothes were gone. We found one case in Texas, one in Washington and one in Alaska."
Kelly looked at the Intelligence cop in horror at this news and asked, "All the same guy?"
"Looks like, there's a lengthy cool off period in between each one, what happened with Casey fits the time frame for a new victim. The thing that doesn't add up is none of the workers belonged to the crews at the sites where their bodies were dumped...and none of them owned their own construction company."
Kelly was confused. "So why Casey?"
"Maybe he's getting more confident," Antonio said, "or maybe he couldn't find anybody else that fit his type for a victim, everything else still checks."
"But no DNA?" Kelly knew there had to be a catch.
"He knows to cover his tracks, no DNA, no hairs, no spermicide, whatever he sodomized them with, nothing was found during the postmortem."
"Was there anything in the victims' mouths?" Kelly asked. "When we found Casey he'd been gagged with a dirty handkerchief, did they check?"
"Nothing usable in the victims' mouths or stomachs," Antonio answered. "They all had similar ligature marks but there were no usable fibers in any of them. This guy is no amateur, he knows what he's doing."
Kelly tried to comprehend what Antonio was telling him, and asked, "But only three victims so far?"
"Three that match anyway, he could've spent years working his way to this point, starting out in a comfort zone with minor assaults, maybe some breaking and entering, maybe some kidnapping charges, possibly sexual assault. Technically this doesn't qualify as a sex crime but if he did this to anybody else, most guys would not report it because they're too embarrassed."
"So why would he start killing them?" Kelly wanted to know.
"Possibly just torturing and humiliating them stopped being fulfilling to him, or maybe he got too careless and accidentally killed one, and it upped the satisfaction he got out of it," Dawson told him.
"Would he come back?" Kelly asked.
Antonio looked at him and answered honestly, "I don't know. Just be aware, be vigilant, if you notice anything, give me a call."
"I know, Voight already gave me a card."
"Yeah, well put me on speed dial," Antonio said, "Casey even thinks he sees this guy again, let me know."
"He was doing pretty well until now," Kelly said. "I think this just set him clear back. Any suggestions?"
"If he won't talk to anyone about it, unfortunately there's not much you can do," Antonio answered, "he has to want help."
"He wants help, he just doesn't want anyone to find out what happened," Kelly replied.
He sighed exasperatedly and told the cop, "I better get back in and check on him."
"Good luck, Kelly."
Kelly moved to knock on the front door for Casey to let him in, and saw that the door was ajar, Casey hadn't locked it, hadn't even closed it.
"Casey?" Kelly stepped in and looked around. He shut the door behind him, and quickly found Casey curled in a ball on the far end of the couch, his face pressed against his knees as he cried and shook like a leaf.
Kelly felt the weight of the whole planet back on his shoulders. Without a word he went over to the couch, sat down beside Casey, leaned over and pulled Matt towards him and held him in his arms. Casey didn't respond to the touch, but Kelly supposed he should just be grateful that Casey didn't try to retreat from it either. There were so many things he wanted to say, and so many things he wished he could say, but he couldn't give voice to any of them. So he just held his friend and let him gradually cry himself to sleep.
He didn't know when Casey finally did fall asleep, he didn't know what time it was, all he knew was that he was exhausted, and he slowly and very awkwardly got them both laid down on the couch, Casey laying on top of his chest. Kelly hoped he would sleep through the rest of the night, and very tiredly closed his own eyes and tried to block out the light and the sound from the TV and the lights being on again.
"Kelly...Kelly...Kelly."
"Huh? Wha?" Kelly opened his eyes, the room was dark. After a few seconds he remembered he was in his quarters at 51, and he sat somebody standing beside his bunk, and he knew who it was.
"What's wrong, Casey?" he tiredly whispered.
Casey stood stiff as a board, and it was with much difficulty that he was able to answer, "I...had a...nightmare."
This wasn't the first time since they'd been back to work that Casey had done this. It wasn't every shift but most nights he was woken up by Casey, who asked without asking, if he could stay with Severide.
"Okay, come on," Kelly threw back the covers, and reached out and grabbed Casey's arm assuredly, then recoiled as he realized, "Casey you're soaked."
Now that his eyes had had time to adjust to the darkness, he realized that Casey's hair was standing up in small spikes, he must've sweated through his whole bunk.
Kelly sighed to himself as he realized what he had to do now.
"Okay...okay," he said as he swung his legs over the side and got up, he clapped a hand on Casey's back and told him, "Let's go."
The two men quietly made their way through the bunk room and over to the locker room. Kelly got a change of clothes out of Casey's locker as Matt stripped off his clothes that were practically stuck to him, turned on the hot water and stepped in one of the stalls and pulled the curtain behind him. Ten minutes later he all but fell out of the shower dripping wet and his skin bright pink from nearly scalding himself.
"You okay?" Kelly asked as he handed Casey a towel.
Casey dried off his arms and his face first and for a brief second buried his face in the towel, then lowered it and merely nodded with a strained groan for an answer.
"I'm sorry," he finally managed to get out.
"It's okay...you get dressed," Kelly picked up his discarded clothes and said, "I'll get your stuff tossed in the washer."
Casey nodded his head mechanically and said only, "Thanks, Kelly."
Severide made his way back through the bunk room, into Casey's quarters, quickly stripped the bed and took it all to the laundry room and got it started. On his way back, a sudden deep voice said, "Kelly."
"Ah!" Kelly spun on his heel and saw it was Boden.
"Chief...you scared me."
"What's going on, Kelly?" Wallace asked.
"Oh...Casey threw up."
"Is he alright?"
"Yeah, I think it's just a stomach flu."
"Oh great," Boden grumbled. "Well I sincerely hope it runs its course with everybody at 51 before the next shift."
Kelly didn't know what else to do, so he just nodded.
"You told Boden?" Casey's eyes were wide with panic when they returned to his quarters.
"I told him you threw up, he seemed to buy it," Kelly answered as they made short work of remaking the bunk with fresh bedding.
Casey groaned, "Kelly, this whole thing is a mess."
"I know," he replied. "It'll get better."
"When?" Casey sounded close to losing any hope of that.
"Little at a time," Kelly put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed it reassuringly.
"I don't think I can wait that long."
"You'll be fine, come on, let's try and get some sleep before the bells go off," Kelly said as he laid down on one side of the bed.
"I can't sleep," Casey told him.
"Lie down anyway."
Reluctantly, Casey did. The two of them fit on the bunk, albeit awkwardly, Casey turned on his side so there was more space between them.
"I can't sleep," he repeated.
"Just close your eyes and rest," Kelly told him. He watched Casey until he did. "Okay, take a deep breath...another...another...good, just take it easy."
Kelly was still awake, and still watching Casey when his breaths became steady and rhythmic and let him know the Truck lieutenant was finally asleep, half an hour later. Then Severide laid back and closed his eyes as well, and hoped it was a slow night.