The Cassidy Chronicles

When he could finally see out of the front window, he drove carefully, but quickly towards her house. He needed to get to her before Stewart did. The roads weren't busy for a Friday night and he got onto the highway and thought about all the possible outcomes. Ideally, the first option was the best. That Stewart had realized that it wasn't her that had called the police would be the best option. The second option was that Stewart was coming after him, in which case making sure she was safe was important. The third option was that Stewart would just go back to breaking the law and forget about his little stay in prison.

Ryan wanted nothing more than to keep her safe. He truly needed her to remain away from the danger that he had pulled her in. Had he not been at the banquet hall when she arrived, none of this would have happened. It was a complete fluke that they were there at the same time. Ryan was going to break in to the place to get his jacket, but just as he was planning how to do that, she had shown up. Then Stewart had arrived and he didn't want to scare Cassidy. He needed his jacket so had just pretended not to know who he was.

It had almost worked. Almost. Ryan wondered why he had decided to go to the banquet hall in the morning after the charity event in the first place. Was it fate? Was it destiny? The fact that she was looking for him was even more startling. Then she had told him her dream or vision or whatever she wanted to call it. Things were falling into place, but right now, he had to get to her house.

He drove up to her house and the place was dark. Was she home? Her car wasn't in the laneway, but it could be in the garage. He could break into her home, but was he that desperate. He decided to try to call her on her cell phone. After ten rings, there was no answer. He decided to call Molly and ask her where she was.

Ryan slapped his forehead playfully. Of course, she had said that they were out investigating a haunted house. He figured he would call Molly and see if he could meet up with them. The phone rang a few times and then clicked to her voice mail. He didn't want to leave a message. He could have, but his voice was quivering.

Ryan decided to try her cell phone again, but once again, no one answered and he hung up before it clicked to voice mail. He needed to find her. The police couldn't do much more than he was doing so there was no use calling them. Even if he did something rash, he could explain later. He had never handed in his badge or gun, just had everything put on hold while he worked out his personal life and his attempt at a new job.

Ryan sat in his dark car in Cassidy's laneway and made a plan for himself. It was eight o'clock. He had no idea how long it took them to do whatever they did. He would wait until ten and then if she were still not back, he would call Molly again. As long as she was with Molly and Jeremy, she was safe. Ryan knew that Stewart wouldn't do anything stupid as long as there were witnesses. He knew that Stewart wasn't capable of anything that required a lot of thought, but still was worried that being stuck in prison for a week had changed him.

Ryan turned the radio on and listened to his favorite radio station. This particular radio station played music from the seventies and eighties on Friday night and he grinned when the song "Power of Love" by Huey Lewis and the News came on. It was ironic really. The last good memory he had of Cassidy and him was watching the movie that this song came from. She had really enjoyed the movie although was definitely not obsessed with it as much as he was. He listened to the song and smiled. He hadn't been the sappy romantic type, but something about Cassidy changed him. He listened to the lyrics.

***

Cassidy said goodbye to Molly and Jeremy and got into her car to drive home. She wasn't thinking of anything in particular. She was parked in the laneway of the Kennedy residence first so had to wait until Molly and Jeremy pulled out first. She got into her car and gasped. Sitting in the passenger seat was Stewart Jones. He smelled like alcohol and was breathing very hard. She should have screamed and run away, but he grabbed her wrist tightly.

"You have two choices. If you get out, I am going to drive your car and probably run you over. I've had about ten beers in the last hour and that would put me over the legal limit quite easily. The other option is that you drive to where I want you to go. Don't answer your phone, don't do anything or I'm going to crash the car and you will probably die."

Cassidy nodded. She put the car in reverse and backed out of the laneway. She had no idea if this was the right thing to do. She grew up in a nice neighborhood and had never had to learn any street proofing tricks. This was insane, she thought. She listened as Stewart rapidly spoke.

"Go down the street and turn right then get on the highway. I'll tell you when to get off." Cassidy nodded and drove carefully. She was getting nauseous at the smell of his breath and had it not been so dark in the car she would have seen how white her knuckles were. A few times the car swayed to the left or the right and that was simply because she was holding the steering wheel so tightly that even the slightest movement jarred the car.

Cassidy wanted to explain that it wasn't her that had called the police. She wanted to explain a lot to him, but was scared into silence. Had she been in a better mood she would have laughed at that. Cassidy rarely stopped talking so the fact she couldn't say a word was a miracle.

The drive was silent except for Stewart's hard breathing. When they drove past a streetlight, Cassidy glanced over to see what he was wearing. He was dressed in faded jeans with stains on the knees. He was wearing what looked liked a white shirt and a heavy dark jacket that was done up almost all the way. The white contrasted with his dark jacket. Cassidy continued to drive until his low voice startled her.

"Take the next exit."

Cassidy gritted her teeth. She wished her cell phone would ring. She would have to answer it because otherwise someone would be worrying about her. She could convince him that if she didn't answer it, someone would come looking for her. It was the perfect plan. She wanted to reach out and touch him, try to read his mind, but she was scared. She wondered if people would think this funny and ironic. The psychic is kidnapped and almost killed by a psycho ex-cop. Of course, if they knew anything about psychic powers they would know that they are not consistent. If she could touch something important to him she might get a glimpse of the future, but whether that would include her was a different story. It was possible that she would get a flash-forward so far into the future that it wouldn't make sense.

"Turn right and drive into the parking garage."

Cassidy gasped then clapped her hand over her mouth again. They were driving into the same building that she had been to last week. Had it only been last week? It seemed like a decade ago that she and Ryan had sat on the couch in his office and watched 'Back to the Future.' It seems liked eons ago that they had made out on that couch, cuddled, and then she had turned all bitchy on him and stormed off.

She instinctively drove around in circles until they were on the bottom floor of the parking garage. She should have been scared, but she wasn't. This was familiar to her and it made all the difference. She pulled into the same parking spot that Ryan had parked in and she saw the shiny metal of the elevator doors.

"Have you figured it out or do I need to tell you?" Stewart had grabbed the keys and gotten out of the car. Cassidy blinked and realized that it was safer out of the car. She got out and looked at Stewart. The car separated the two of them, but it seemed so much more was separating them.

Cassidy saw a lonely old man who had made many mistakes in his life. She saw a man who had never been able to succeed at anything who was now doing something drastic and stupid. This wasn't her psychic ability that was telling her these things. It was her common sense and ability to be compassionate. She used to have these feelings, but after her brother had died, she had lost that ability. Now, she was feeling compassion for the man who least deserved it. He could kill her.

She read somewhere that if someone were going to kill you, they'd do it right away. If they had a weapon, they would show it and he hadn't shown her a gun or anything. Cassidy stared at him and realized that she was so stupid. She could have gotten out of the car at the Kennedy residence. She could have run away and screamed for help. She could have called 911. Instead, she had let him intimate her.

"Why are we at Ryan's office?" Cassidy's voice sounded so strange in the almost empty parking garage. She wanted to know things now. Her thought process had quickly gone from fear to compassion and now wonderment. She wanted to know.

"Easiest way to get the two of you together. You'll call him when we get to his office. Come."

Cassidy reluctantly followed. She really had no choice. She hoped that there were video cameras in the elevator or the hallway. Maybe Ryan had a security system, which would go off. No matter what, she knew that as long as Ryan showed up, she would feel safe. She didn't think of that fact that she was the bait for whom he really wanted.

The elevator ride was awkward. Cassidy pressed herself up against the opposite wall. Stewart was still breathing hard, but wasn't looking so disoriented. He was sobering up and, hopefully, the adrenalin in his body would continue to help that. Cassidy was worried that if he indeed had a gun and had just chosen not to show it to her, she would rather he be sober when holding it as opposed to drunk.

Cassidy walked down the hall, watching as Stewart took a key from his pocket and unlocked the door. She should have kept her mouth shut, but curiosity had always been one of her faults

"How do you have a key? Did you steal it or something?"

Stewart laughed. "You are way too naïve to be dating a cop. It's a magnetic strip. You can buy a machine that creates these no problem at all. You think I wanted him to know that I had been breaking into his office for the last month."

Stewart stepped in first and Cassidy followed. His office looked the same as it had the last time she was there. The leather couch and entertainment center was against one wall. The door to the bathroom and security area was there. His desk was cluttered with papers and she grinned when she saw on a piece of paper her name and cell phone number. Obviously, he had tried to get a hold of her.

"Sit on the couch and don't move. I'm going to call him."

Cassidy sat down on the couch. Part of her was feeling comfort in the familiarly of the cool smooth leather. She desperately tried to remember the feelings and emotions that were running through her body when she and Ryan had sat there. She remembered the feel of his lips and how good it felt to kiss her. She remembered cuddling up against him and falling asleep. It was like they both calmed each other down. Cassidy sat cross-legged and hugged a pillow that was next to her. If she thought hard, she could smell his scent. It was the only thing that was keeping her distracted.

"Well hello, Ryan. I'm glad you answered your phone. I think you should make your way to your office right now. Yes, I know where she is. She's here. She came willingly, which was a surprise. I thought after Beth you decided that dumb blondes weren't really a lot of fun. We'll be waiting for you. Yes. I'll try not to touch her, but she is rather cute. I'm not sure I like the purple hair and nail polish. It looks a little too slutty, but I guess after Beth she is a step up." Cassidy listened carefully and tried to figure out if she could read either one of their minds. It wasn't working. She swore under her breath. She needed to touch something personal of his and maybe then she'd know what was going to happen.

"Can I see your old police badge?" Cassidy had no idea where that came from. Would he even have his police badge with him? Why would she ask him for that and wouldn't he get suspicious of why she wanted it? She then understood. His police badge, although something negative, was something personal. If she could touch it, she could see into the future and have the upper hand in this.

"Yeah sure." Stewart reached into his back pocket and grabbed a leather case. It was thinner than a wallet and worn. He threw it over at her then spoke.

"Why?"

Cassidy gulped. She wasn't normally good at lying so was worried that he would catch on. Not like he would believe her if she told him the truth. Cassidy then thought about telling him the truth, assuming that if he thought she was lying, he would be less likely to believe her. "Ryan told me you used to work together. Ryan has never shown me his badge so I was curious as to what one looks like."

Stewart didn't respond verbally so much as he grunted and then sat down at Ryan's desk. He looked out the window into the dark night and then back to his prisoner. He had planned the kidnapping very carefully and was glad that so far things were working out very well. He knew that Cassidy wasn't the type to fight back so he knew it would be easy to kidnap her. He was trying to figure out a good time to do so and had Ryan not been hanging out at her house a week ago, he would have done it then. He had a whole week in a jail cell to plan his arrangements and decided that he would kidnap Cassidy and then lure Ryan to this location. Now, he just had to wait until Ryan showed up.

Cassidy caught the badge and immediately got a flash. She closed her eyes and paid attention to every detail for fear that it would escape her mind forever.

She saw Stewart investigating a drug case and then stealing the drugs himself. It then flashed to her and Ryan, kissing in her house. Cassidy gasped, realizing that he was spying on them at that time. Her vision flash forwarded to a funeral scene, outside in the wintertime. There was a group of people dressed in dark clothes standing around the casket near the tombstone. That was it. That was all she saw from holding on to his badge. Nothing about her being kidnapped. Nothing about Ryan. She ran the scene through her head two more times, making sure that she was getting every single detail.

She finally opened her eyes and saw that Stewart had moved from sitting in Ryan's office chair to standing outside the door. Cassidy suddenly saw the door open and she saw for the first time that Stewart had a gun pointing at her.

Cassidy's heart practically stopped. She had never seen a gun close up and wasn't impressed that the first time she would see one, it would be loaded and pointing at her head. It was silver and small, but she could see Stewart's finger shaking lightly as it rested on the trigger. She wanted to get up, but knew that would just startle him.

Then she noticed a shadow from the hallway and knew that Ryan was on the other side. They were speaking softly and Cassidy couldn't hear a thing. She leaned forward, but still couldn't hear. Finally, Ryan rushed in and ran right to Cassidy.

"I'm sorry." Ryan picked Cassidy up and sat back down on the couch with her in his lap. Stewart was pacing the room now, waiting for something.

"It's not your fault. You shouldn't be here. I'm fine. What's happening?" Cassidy had so many questions that her mind wouldn't stop blurting out half sentences.

Ryan held Cassidy's face in her hands and looked at her. He wanted to answer her questions, but the weight on his thighs never felt so good. The smell of her strawberry shampoo never smelled so good. Most importantly, her deep chocolate brown eyes never looked so good. "He wants the media to report on the true arsonist in the case. Chief White won't do it. I was on the phone with him on the way here. I can't tell you why. He knows that you didn't tell the police about him being there, but he's not so sure I didn't. He's going to wait until morning and then call the media telling them that he has us trapped and that he will kill us."

Cassidy whimpered. He was talking so matter-of-factly. Did he have to do this because he was a police officer? Was this in the training he received? To be without emotion and feeling as he talked about death.

"It's going to be fine. He's too neurotic and unbalanced to do it. He just hates that he was accused of the arson attack on the banquet hall. It's nothing about you personally and if you hadn't been with me at the banquet hall that morning and had we not gone out to breakfast and dinner, he wouldn't have cared about you. I told you being around me is dangerous. You were just too stubborn to listen."

Cassidy was about to go off on one of her bitch sessions, but instead she grinned. He was right. She never was one to listen to others and this would have been a good time to listen. She snuggled into his chest and closed her eyes. She wanted to imagine that the creepy ex-cop was not standing in the same room as them. She wanted to wish that she had never gone to the charity ball and had never touched Ryan's jacket. The more she thought about it, the more she worked out in her head the exact way she wanted to have met Ryan.

"What are you thinking about?" Ryan was completely content to have Cassidy snuggled in his arms. This was the only way he knew of right now to make sure that she remained safe. He knew that the gun that Stewart was waving around wasn't loaded, but he didn't want him to know that he knew. Ryan was surprised really. It was an easy thing to check and you'd think someone who went through the police academy would know these things. It just reinforced the fact that Stewart was never a good police officer and never would be.

Ryan was going to call the chief in the morning and demand he tell the media. If not, Ryan was going to call it in as a hostage situation. Right now, all the chief knew was that it was a misunderstanding. If he didn't change his mind tomorrow, things would be completely different.

Cassidy looked up into his eyes and responded. "I'm imagining a better way for the two of us to meet. Something where I'm not a neurotic bitchy crazy woman who kisses you one moment and then tells you I hate you the next."

"I came on too strong."

"No you didn't. My mom even told me that you didn't. She told me that I was stubborn and to just accept the fact that I was falling in love with you. I'm way too practical for my own good."

Ryan grinned. This was a completely different side to Cassidy and he knew that part of it was the fear of the unknown. Ryan had taken classes on how hostages react after they are rescued. She was exhibiting a classic defense mechanism, which was helping her cope with the situation. He hoped that once the stress of the situation was over, she would still have feelings for him and more importantly, want to act on those feelings.

"Tell me the dream. I want to hear how we meet." Ryan was grinning, but had his eyes on Stewart. Stewart was pacing quickly back and forth while looking out the window then looking at his cell phone. He was practically ignoring his two hostages and that made Ryan feel better. Stewart really had no idea what he was doing.

"I dreamt that I was at the grocery store buying my weekly groceries. I was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, not anything special. I was walking around the aisles and was looking at a specific type of pasta to buy. I love pasta and saw that the pasta was on sale. Just as I went to grab the container, your hand touched mine and I looked up and saw you. You were grinning as you tried to tug the pasta away from me. We had a cute discussion about who should get the pasta and the result was that we should both have it. You invited me over for dinner."