“No, you won’t. But let’s talk about alternatives,” I offered. “What are your suggestions? You don’t want to go home to California. You can’t stay here. It’s not good for my family, and it’s really not helping. Eventually, you need to leave and reclaim your life. If you let this SOB scare you into obscurity, you’ll have to walk away from everything you worked hard to build, your entire career, and you’ll have to remain in hiding. Is that really what you want? And even if you do all that, will he leave you alone?”
“Well, I know one thing,” she said. She gulped hard, and added, “I know that I don’t want to die.”
“Then this plan is your best bet, your only option,” I said. “We need Argus to come after you where and when we’re prepared to protect you. Otherwise, you’ll never know when he’ll strike, and it could be when you’re alone, with no one to help.”
“But I’ll be out there on the stage, not knowing when he’ll . . .”
“Cassidy, I’ll be close by every minute,” I promised. “Every second.”
“Will you be on the stage with me?” she asked.
“No, the lieutenant won’t, but we’ll all be near, dressed as stagehands, cowboys and cowgirls, spectators, sound techs, and ushers,” David explained. “We’ll have officers all over Reliant Stadium, all intent on keeping you safe and catching this guy.”
The kid thought about that, and then frowned. “Okay, but how can you catch him when you don’t even know what he looks like?”
None of us answered, because she was right. Collins was a smart kid. Without an ID, our odds of catching Argus weren’t as rosy as we painted them. Still, as I saw it, she didn’t have a choice. Living in fear wasn’t an option.
“These types of stalkers, when they’re this committed and this dangerous, well, Cassidy, they don’t just go away,” I explained. “This guy is fixated on you. He’s not giving up.”
“But I’m scared,” she said. She sat down hard on the chair next to me and the spindles creaked behind her. The kitchen smelled of the breakfast tacos the captain had brought, egg, sausage, potato, and refried beans wrapped in thick flour tortillas. There were a few on a plate on the table, but the kid didn’t grab one. I doubted that she had much of an appetite. The teenager closed her eyes, as if collecting her thoughts, or perhaps praying. For a few moments, no one spoke, not the captain, not David, not our celebrity charge, nor I. In the silence, I thought about what she’d said, that we didn’t have a face to pin on the stalker. We had a suspect, Jack Shaw, but it was at best a long-shot guess, at worst another total misdirection. Cassidy was right. Without at the very least a description of the person we were looking for, the odds were against us. It was then that my sleep-deprived brain focused on what had kept me awake, an idea until then not fully formed.
“Cassidy,” I said. “Remember when you told us that in an early e-mail Argus claimed your eyes met at a concert? That you saw him?”
She looked over at me, questioning.
“Yeah. In Atlanta,” she said. “But I told you I don’t remember anyone from that night. I really don’t see much of anything in the crowd, from the stage. I don’t see faces. That doesn’t help.”
“Maybe not,” I admitted. “But maybe, just maybe, you did see him. And if you did, maybe there’s a way to jog your memory. I’m going to make a phone call. If I can pull this together, at least we’ve got a shot of figuring out who we’re looking for.”
R
elax,” Dr. Dorin said, in a steady, soothing voice. “Cassidy, the most important thing is for you to let your mind rest. Concentrate on my voice and relax.”
“Yeah, sure,” the kid said, sounding doubtful. “Relax with that creep out there stalking me?”
“Breathe,” Dorin said, drawing out the word. “One deep breath . . . two . . . three . . . breathe.”
In my darkened bedroom later that morning, Cassidy lay on my bed, on top of my white eyelet comforter, while David and I watched silently from the shadows. Dorin had explained that her first task would be to lead the teenager to an imaginary place, one where she felt safe enough to set aside her anxiety. “You’re in a beautiful meadow, surrounded by a rich forest and the air is thick with oxygen,” Dorin said. “Flowers of every color line your path, and the air is scented with lavender. This is a place where you have nothing to fear. No one can harm you while you remain here, and you have no worries. Your only task is rest and relaxation.”
Despite the doctor’s assurances, on the bed, Cassidy stirred nervously. “I’m not feeling it,” she said. “I’m cold.”
I grabbed one of Mom’s crocheted afghans off the brass quilt stand in the corner and laid it over the kid’s slight frame.
“Thanks,” she said, never opening her eyes.
“You’re welcome,” I whispered. Dr. Dorin shot me a glance, reminding me to keep quiet, but I couldn’t help myself. That was the first thank you I’d heard come out of the kid. Maybe it was too much to hope for, but she did seem to be letting her guard down, at least a little. While we’d waited for Dr. Dorin to arrive, I’d watched Cassidy with Warrior, talking to the foal, brushing his coat, and almost cooing at him as she tried to reassure him that all was well. Perhaps she was attempting to convince herself as well that there was nothing to fear and all wouldn’t be lost.
“Picture yourself in that meadow, my dear, surrounded by beauty,” Dorin said. She still had the stripe of white roots in her dyed dark hair, and she wore what I thought was probably her uniform of sorts, a long skirt with a sensible sweater and dark brown flats. “See yourself near a small stream.” At that the therapist turned on a portable CD player, and the room filled with the murmur of a babbling brook, birds high in trees, and the serenity of nature. “Feel the rhythmic motion of a hammock rocking languidly back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.”
Cassidy fidgeted again on the bed. “I can’t do this,” she whispered. “Maybe I’m not good at getting hypnotized.”
Dorin sighed. “Cassidy, I know that you’ve had to be strong, be on guard,” she said. “Even for those who have had less stressful lives, it can be difficult to give power over to someone else and trust they have your best interests at heart. But none of the people here with you would harm you. Do you believe that we all want to help you?”
At first, Cassidy remained silent. She opened her eyes and
looked around the room, at the therapist, at David, and then at me. I smiled at her and she smiled back. Then, she closed her eyes and said in a small voice, “Yeah.”
“Then release control,” Dorin instructed. “Place yourself temporarily in our care. We will protect you. Listen to my voice and relax. Relax.”
“Okay. I’ll try,” the kid said.
“Don’t try,” Dorin said, still in that same quiet, nurturing manner. “I can’t reach you if you’re working to help me. Instead, clear your mind. Breathe deeply, relax, relax, let go of your stress and wipe your mind clean. Just be. Allow yourself to blend into the bed, the mattress. Feel the slight breeze in the air as it skims your body. Imagine yourself in that meadow, a solitary place where you’re protected, where you’re able to lie on a blanket, close your eyes, and drift away. The sky above is blue and the clouds a pure white.”
I suspected that with most subjects, Dr. Dorin didn’t have to work quite this hard. It took a full fifteen minutes before the therapist nodded at me. “Cassidy,” Dr. Dorin said. “Can you hear my voice?”
“Yeah,” the kid said, lying on the bed, her breathing deep and steady. “I hear you.”
“Listen carefully and do as I tell you,” Dorin said. “But if you become frightened, if you feel unsafe, remember the meadow. You always have the meadow available to you, and you can will yourself there at any moment.”
“The meadow,” Cassidy said. “I have the meadow.”
“That’s right. No one can hurt you, because you have your safe place. You can go to the meadow at will, just by deciding you want to, instantly, and no one can follow you. No one can hurt you there,” Dorin said. The girl nodded. “Now I’m going to take you back in time just a little, to this morning. I want you to tell me where you were and what you did right after waking up.”
“I had to go to the bathroom. I was yawning, walking down the hallway, and I passed the lieutenant’s room. I heard her on the telephone,” she said. “I heard her talking to Rick, saying I was going to perform at the rodeo. I was upset. I was afraid.”
Dorin looked at me for confirmation, and I nodded. “That’s good, Cassidy,” the therapist said. “Now let’s go further back into your memory, to the night you performed in Atlanta. The show has just started. Describe what you see.”
“I can’t see anything,” she said. “It’s my opening song, and I’m wearing my costume, that gold cocoon, and I can’t see through it. I can hear the crowd and the band, but I can’t see anything.”
“Fast-forward a little, until the cocoon is gone,” Dorin said. “What do you see now?”
Cassidy paused for a few moments, and then said, “I’m looking down at the audience, flying on wires way above them. I’m singing, and the girls are reaching up at me. I see colors, lights. I see people below me.”
“Look at their faces, Cassidy,” Dorin said. “Isolate the men in the audience. Focus on them and describe them.”
“I can’t,” the kid said, urgently. Agitated, she shook her head, as if looking from face to face in a crowd we couldn’t see. “Everything is a blur. I can’t focus. I don’t see faces. All I see are arms reaching up to me, and I hear the kids screaming over the music. I’m scared.”
“Slow down, Cassidy. Remember no one can hurt you. You always have the meadow. You can go there at will. So please, focus. Go into slow motion and focus. Look through the crowd and see if you can pick out a face, a man’s face,” Dorin said. “Any man. Tell me what he looks like.”
“I see the figures of men and women, moms and dads,” she said. Her expression changed from fear to one of deep sadness. “They’re there with their kids. Everyone looks so excited to see me.”
“You’re frowning,” Dorin said. “Why does that make you sad?”
“It’s just,” the kid said, “it’s not important.”
“Tell me,” Dorin said. “Why does that make you sad?”
“I wonder why they’re so happy.”
“Why do you find that surprising, Cassidy?” Dorin asked. “Aren’t they all there because of your music? To hear you sing?”
“Yes, they’re there to hear me sing,” she said. “It just doesn’t seem right.”
“Why not?”
“It just doesn’t.”
“Explain it to me,” Dorin said. “Make me understand.”
The teenager hesitated, a tear making its way down her pale cheek. “It’s hard. I see the kids with their parents, and it makes me sad. I don’t have a dad, and my mom hardly noticed me,” she said, her voice a low whisper. “I felt like I didn’t even exist.”
“Why do you think that was?” Dorin asked.
“I was alone so much,” Cassidy said. “Mom was drunk all the time. She never, I never felt like she loved me.”
As bad as I felt for the kid, I gave Dorin a look and wound my hand in a circle, hoping she’d get the hint to speed things up. The tragedies of Cassidy’s life might be interesting to explore in therapy, but this wasn’t the time. We didn’t have all day, and I’d explained to the doctor what we needed.
“That wasn’t your fault, my dear,” the therapist said, ignoring me. “Alcoholism is a disease. Your mother was sick, and you were a child. You deserved her love, but she was unable to give it. You bear no blame for her illness or her shortcomings.”
“It hurts,” Cassidy groaned, and each word bore deep sadness. “Why didn’t she love me?”
For a moment, Dorin said nothing. I looked over at David and he shot me a glance, one that reflected the kid’s pain. It was just too real, too present, too on display. I wondered if it hit the therapist as
hard as it had us, or if hearing such admissions from patients made her immune to the depth of a young girl’s anguish.
“I’m sure your mother loved you, Cassidy,” the doctor said, softly, and from the hoarseness of her voice I knew that she too was touched. “Your mother was ill. You couldn’t change or help her, no matter how hard you tried. It wasn’t your fault. None of it was your fault.”
“I should have done something,” the girl said, and I decided perhaps it was worth not protesting to allow Dorin a few minutes to address what even I could see was an open wound. It was then that Cassidy uttered the words that must have festered deep inside her for years. “I loved my mom, but I hated her, too. Sometimes I think that I let her die.”
“No, Cassidy, no,” Dorin said, her voice pleading. “You were a child. You never had the power to save her.”
“Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, I was a kid. But I was her kid, and I watched her die.”
“Cassidy, listen to me. Children aren’t responsible for their parents,” Dorin said, sounding like a grandmother comforting yet scolding a young child. “Your mother was the adult. Not you. You were never in control. She was there to protect you, not the other way around. Do you understand that, Cassidy?”
“She was there to protect me,” the girl repeated. “I never had control. Then why do I hurt?”
I looked at my watch again, willing the session to go forward.
“You hurt because she was your mother, and you loved her,” the therapist said. “Because you wanted to help her. But you couldn’t. She was the only one who could help herself.”
As much as I wanted to let it go on, we were losing time. I nudged Dorin’s arm, and she jerked slightly, as if she’d forgotten why we were there and that David and I were waiting.
“Now Cassidy,” she said, taking my cue. “Remember what we talked about. Return to that night in Atlanta, performing on the stage. Once again look out into the audience. I want you to focus on the faces, especially those of the men, and tell me about them.”
“I told you that I can’t see them,” Cassidy said. “They’re there, and I can see the outlines, but not the faces. It’s a blur.”
“You can’t see any of them?”
“No,” she said. “Not with the gold stuff all over me. When I do the cocoon, I can’t wear my contact lenses. That gold stuff hurts my eyes.”
“You can’t see the audience at all?” Dorin asked.