Casey didn't sleep well after that incident, his first night home after the next shift, he tossed and turned all night and had strange dreams the whole time. When he woke up in the morning he felt like he'd never been to sleep. But he heard his phone ping with an incoming text message, so he got up to see who and what it was.
His eyes bugged out to their maximum capacity and he felt his jaw drop as he saw the pictures of Cathy Woods that had been sent to him. He'd gotten a good ogle at the pics she'd sent Kelly on his phone when they first got together, scantily clad, sexy lingerie, leaving very little to the imagination. None of that compared to the X rated photos that were on his phone and all of them starring Cathy Woods completely naked, in full view poses that belonged in a porn magazine. What the hell?
His phone rang, jarring him back to the here and now. It was Kelly, what was going on?
"Hello, Kelly?"
"Cathy told me, delete them, delete everything," Kelly said determinedly.
"What?" Casey asked. He could hardly make any sense of what Kelly was saying.
"Just do it, delete everything," Kelly told him.
"Kelly, what's going on? What're you talking about?" Casey asked. What the hell was that crazy bitch up to now?
"She thought she was sending them to me and she called me in a panic when she realized she sent the pictures to the wrong number, delete all of it, now," Kelly told him.
"Okay," Casey still wasn't sure he got it, but he couldn't get rid of those obscene pictures fast enough for his own comfort.
"They're gone," he said, feeling disgusted he even had to look at them for as long as he did just to accomplish that.
He heard Kelly heave a sigh of relief, "Thank you."
"Run that by me again," Casey said, still feeling like he was missing something.
"Cathy called me five minutes ago frantic because she realized she sent the pictures to you by mistake, I told her I'd get you to delete them and not to worry," Kelly explained.
Casey felt his cheeks turning a warm pink as he realized he didn't even know how to respond to that. Almost ashamedly he told his best friend, "I didn't get too good a look at anything, they just came through before you called."
He just about asked Kelly how Cathy had even gotten his number, then he caught himself at the last second as it dawned on him that some of those non-existent text messages he never got, if they had been sent, probably would've been through Cathy's phone instead of Kelly's, which would mean Kelly gave her his number. It wasn't something Kelly normally did, but...Casey reminded himself, there wasn't anything normal about what was going on here. This was not one of Severide's normal one night stands or even one of his two-week long flings. He was actually convinced he was in love with this woman, and if that was true, of course it made sense he'd give her Casey's number for an emergency contact or something.
Over the line he could hear Kelly had calmed down, "Sorry to drop this on you first thing in the morning, buddy, but Cathy was hysterical and I told her I'd get it taken care of."
Uh huh. That was Severide for you, a womanizer 90% of the time, but when he actually got serious about a woman, he'd do anything for her.
And that, Casey knew, was where the problem lay. He didn't think there was anything accidental about how those pictures got sent to his phone, he'd bet anything that Cathy did it on purpose just to see how Kelly would react, knowing he'd do anything for her. But he also knew it wouldn't do any good to mention this, because Kelly would never hear of it, just like he wasn't willing to hear anything about Andy, about Heather, about Rice, Severide's track record preceded him, anything he didn't want to face, he shot down as soon as he heard it. And this wouldn't be any different and Casey knew it. He was getting tired of having so many things he couldn't tell his best friend about, and he knew that that was intentional too, the problem was he couldn't prove any of it, and there wasn't any way he could convince anybody else of what was going on without sounding like a nut.
"It's okay," he forced himself to answer nonchalantly, "I understand...she's...very lucky," he felt acid jumping from his stomach to his throat with every word he choked out, "to have you."
"Hey Casey, why the long face?" Herrmann asked as he made his rounds at the bar, "something eating you?"
"Oh..." Casey put his phone away, "Just thinking about something...Herrmann, can I ask you a...kind of personal question?"
"Yeah sure," Herrmann folded his arms against the countertop, "What's on your mind?"
"Uh...when you and Cindy first got together...would she ever answer the door first thing in the morning in just a shirt?" Casey asked, already anticipating this conversation not going well.
Herrmann got a strange look on his face but it wasn't the one Casey expected to see. "Have you met Cindy?" he asked, "That woman's such a devout Catholic, she won't even answer the door in a bathrobe. She don't leave that bedroom in the morning until she's dressed, got her hair and makeup on, and is ready to roll." There was a brief pause before Herrmann inquired, "Why do you want to know?"
"It's nothing, sorry, just forget I said anything."
"Hey I can tell something's the matter with you, Casey, now what is it?" Christopher asked.
"Probably nothing..." Casey looked down at the counter as he told Herrmann, "Severide thinks I'm just being paranoid, he's probably right."
"Hey, I know you, Casey," Herrmann said, "and you are a lot of things, but paranoid ain't one of them. If you think something's fishy, then that means it is. Now what's going on?"
Casey felt like an idiot telling anybody about it, but he tried to get started. "You know Severide's girlfriend, Cathy Woods?"
"Oh yeah, I've seen her around, not too closely though, if Cindy ever caught me staring at her, she'd pluck my eyes outta my skull and kick them across the street," Herrmann said.
"Something's wrong, Herrmann," Casey said. "I can't explain it, and I can't prove it, but something's wrong with her."
"What do you mean?"
"It sounds ridiculous...there's not really any point in me talking about it."
"Hey Casey," Herrmann told him, "I know on shift I answer to you because you're my lieutenant, but off-shift I've got almost 20 years on you, so maybe it's time you start talking to me."
He wasn't sure where to start. The first thing that came to mind just popped out, "I think she poisoned me."
"What?" Herrmann blinked.
Casey found himself spilling everything that had happened from the time he got sick to when everybody else got sick to what Will had told him about the arsenic.
"I know it doesn't make sense, and I know there's no way to connect it all, but I'm convinced she did something," Casey said. "And it's not just that, it's a bunch of little things that she's doing and she only does them when nobody else is around."
"Like what?" Herrmann asked, one eyebrow raised in silent inquiry.
"Every time I go over there in the morning, she answers the door, half naked, she's been coming onto me, I think she's hoping Kelly will catch us and make something out of it. As soon as he's out of the room she's shooting me all these death glares like I'm intruding on them, even when Kelly's invited me over. We've made plans to get together several times and something always comes up and he has to cancel. Last week he was supposed to be here. He said that Cathy sent a text saying he couldn't make it, but I never got a text. A couple nights ago we were supposed to go out to a new club, she gave me the directions and sent me on a wild goose chase halfway across town to the wrong club. I confronted her about it...and she insists that I'm just confused and I don't know what I'm talking about."
"Yeah?" Herrmann replied, "Well she's not too bright, there's no way a decorated lieutenant in the CFD could be wrong so many times."
"Try telling that to Severide," Casey murmured.
"Tell what to Severide?" Otis asked as he came over to them.
"Nothing," Casey said as he got up from the bar stool, "I'm out of here."
"Hold it, sit back down," Christopher told him. He looked at Brian and said to him, "Otis, you've met this Cathy Woods woman, right?"
"Oh yeah," Otis nodded.
"What's your impression of her?"
"Why?"
"No reason," Casey said, suddenly wanting this whole conversation to go away, "I'm being paranoid."
"Matt, sit," Herrmann said when Casey moved to get up. Casey quietly complied. Herrmann looked at Otis and asked him, "What's your impression of her?"
"Honestly?" Brian replied. "She's nice to look at, and she's an okay cook, but I'm not sold on her. What's going on?"
"That bitch might've poisoned Casey," Herrmann said lowly.
"What?" Otis's eyebrows jumped halfway up his forehead.
"We can't prove it," Casey told him, "I can't prove any of it...but I think she's responsible...and I think she poisoned everybody at the firehouse, I don't know how, and I know it sounds crazy, and paranoid-"
It sounded like all the true crime shows he'd been watching every night on the couch for the last several weeks. Somehow in this whole grand scheme, Cathy Woods fit the pattern of the typical psychotic woman who wound up killing her husband or her parents or her kids or even a complete stranger for some twisted personal gain, and Casey knew it sounded too ridiculous to even be true.
"No it doesn't," Otis shook his head.
Both men looked at him.
"What?" Casey asked.
Otis shook his head. "It makes sense. We all know what we saw that first day when she was fighting with Connie...trying to get into Severide's quarters? For what? You think she poisoned the doughnuts?"
Casey reluctantly nodded, "I don't know how-"
"Nobody even knew where they came from...she could've slipped into the firehouse before we came on shift, before Connie got in for work, put them on the table and slipped back out. You're right, we can't explain how, but it makes sense."
"But Severide is never going to believe it, he's head over heels in love with her and he's not going to listen to a word anybody says against her, we know that, we know how he does," Casey said.
All three men were in agreement about that.
"But," Otis suggested, "just because Severide won't believe it...doesn't mean nobody else will. I think you need to bring this up with Boden for protection against any future incidences, then if anything else happens, he ought to know about it. 51's open door policy is a double edged sword, anybody can get in at any time and that can include a psychotic girlfriend, who nobody will suspect of being capable of doing something wrong."
Casey inhaled slowly and told them, "There's more...I think she slashed my tires last month."
"What?" the two bartenders asked.
Casey explained the situation to them from the night of the hockey game.
"Are you serious?" Herrmann asked.
"How'd she find out where you live?" Otis asked.
"She must've followed Severide when he came to get me, it's the only thing that makes sense," Casey said, realizing only now that while he hadn't given any conscious thought to the possibility that Cathy was responsible, the idea suddenly came out of nowhere, but made perfect sense to him.
"So she's stalking you, both of you," Otis said.
Casey shook his head, "I don't know about that."
Stalking. That word didn't set right with him.
"It's a legal definition, Casey," Otis said, "which means you better tell Antonio about all of this too."
"That's a good idea," Herrmann agreed, "maybe he can do a background check on this woman and find out what she really is."
A light bulb seemed to go off over Otis's head, but he didn't say anything, instead he told Casey, "Here's the thing, she's very charismatic, that's why everybody like her, so if you're going to go up against her, you need to get everything on the record, that way it's not just your word against hers, there'll be witnesses, there'll be police reports, there'll be something, and if anything happens, everybody will have known in advance it was coming, so everybody will be ready for it."
"I can't prove she's done anything, if I go telling everybody about this they will think I'm being paranoid," Casey said.
"That's the thing, Casey," Otis told him, "there's no solid proof, and there might not be, but if you can build up enough circumstantial evidence against her, it would be just as damning for her. Whatever she's got planned, she's not going to back down, and it sounds like she's going to up the ante. The chief and the cops have to know about this."
Casey hated to admit it but he knew Brian had a point.
"I'll talk to Antonio tomorrow," he decided, "And I'll tell Boden next shift...they're both going to think I'm crazy."
Otis shook his head, "No, this is an insurance policy if she tries to make them think you're crazy."
"She wouldn't have far to go there," Casey noted, "her personality changes every time Kelly leaves the room, she swears she's sent me messages that she didn't, and I can't prove she didn't, and there's something else."
He told the two men about the photos she'd sent to his phone the other day and about Severide's reaction to it.
"She's definitely trying to pull something off," Otis said, "the question is what?"
"Yeah," Herrmann said, "And I would definitely bring this to the cops' attention before she tries something like boiling a rabbit on your stove."
Both Casey and Otis looked at Herrmann like he was nuts, but Casey understood what he was getting at. He guessed he didn't really have any choice, he had to tell somebody what was going on before things got worse. He hated to think how they could.