REPRESENTED (43 page)

             
Karin grinned at Cassie and that turned into a smile.  “I’ll turn in my resignation Monday.  It gives them a month and I can really have them up to speed in no time and turn everything over to my team members.  I won’t let them use and abuse me anymore.  I’m done.  Your career I will help you with, advise you if you want.  I can’t do what I did with Kreske because that would upset them.  I can however
advise
” she stressed this word so that Cassie could get the innuendo.

             
Cassie was a sharp cookie.  She got it.  Karin wouldn’t be abandoning her at all, instead she would advise Cassie on what she should do in the future.  It was a tremendous relief.  She didn’t want Karin to be under Kreske’s thumb anymore either.

             
“Then after everything is settled there, then we will let you take People up on their ‘exclusive’ offer.  What do you think?”

             
“You think we should make money off of our engagement?” Cassie was appalled.

             
Karin grinned “you don’t have to take the money baby, donate it to one of your favorite charities.  Hell, let’s start a charity in your name.  That’s actually a great idea and a good tax deduction.  We could use the money that People gives you as seed money.”

             
Cassie loved the idea.  The GLBT (Gay, Lesbian, Bi-sexual, and Transgender) community would benefit.  She liked the idea of helping out youths whose confusion would be addressed.  They were the innocent victims of prejudice, ignorance, and stupidity.

             
They discussed a charity all through dinner.  Karin had given Cassie a new bone to worry.  She had adroitly turned the subject from her own resignation from Kreske’s and the possible danger that might warrant.  She wasn’t sure there was still a danger.  Her knowledge and experiences went with her.  She hoped they would be reasonable about it.

             
That night before they went home she bought a gadget at the ‘spy’ store on 6th.  Supposedly it could detect bugs.  She paid a mint for the little hand held palm pilot like thing and prayed it worked.  They demonstrated it in the store, showing her how it worked as Cassie stood outside with D.O.G. wondering how long she would be.  They discussed it all the way home and Karin tried it all over their apartment.  She found one bug and even though she was expecting it, this surprised her.  It was attached to the phone in the kitchen which anyone who knew her knew she rarely used her landline.  It created a bit of paranoia for both of them as they swept the entire apartment time and again.

             
The next morning Karin called a phone number she had been given at the ‘spy’ store if she wanted a more ‘thorough’ sweep.  It was a little sleazy and she didn’t really like how paranoid they felt or that it cost her a lot of money.  They swept the apartment and even the patio and along the outside of the building around each window.  They didn’t find anything else and the bug they found in the phone was confirmed.  The guy zapped it with something and they threw it down the dumpster.  Cassie meanwhile called out a locksmith and they changed all the locks in the apartment including those on the windows.  By Sunday they felt a bit more secure.

“Baby, I want to show you something” Karin stated after the locksmiths were gone.

“OH?” Cassie asked flirtatiously and Karin shook her head with a grin.

“No, that’s later” she promised and then taking Cassie’s hand led her into the bedroom.  “Do you notice anything, look really close” she advised.

Cassie looked around and saw the same fairly sterile room it had always been with the warm plants on the wonderfully large windows.  She’d slept here dozens of times so she didn’t really know what Karin was getting at.  She shrugged “what am I looking for?”

Karin smiled.  “How good is your depth perception?” she asked.

Cassie’s eyes narrowed wondering what she was getting at.  “What are you talking about?”

Karin walked over to the doorway to the bathroom “come here, maybe you can tell from here.”

Cassie walked around the bed to the bathroom doorway and looked around the room but could see nothing and was becoming annoyed.  “What?” she shrugged.

Karin was pleased she had never noticed.  “Look at the size of the bathroom and the size of this room and tell me what you see?”

Cassie did as she was asked and still saw nothing; she was exasperated “I don’t know what I’m looking for?” Depth perception?

Karin walked back around the bed and to the wall that was behind the bedroom door and against what was the bathroom and gently pressed against it well over her head, much to Cassie’s amazement the entire wall began to move forward pivoting on hidden hinges creating the illusion that wall was complete and the edge of it part of the complete wall.  Cassie walked around the bed to look and saw herself looking at another door which Karin pressed a palm print to and had another door sliding open.

“What is this?” Cassie asked, it looked like something out of the Matrix.

“It’s a safe room” Karin told her.  “I found it when I remodeled and accidentally at that, when I ripped down walls to replace the drywall this was revealed.  It’s not listed anywhere that I could find and I hid it as soon as I could and quite well I might add” she smiled at her own cleverness.

“What’s it for?” Cassie asked as Karin began to walk into the small cubicle.

“It’s a room in the event of a nuclear blast that you could live in for weeks, possibly months if you had to.  Only a direct hit to the building would bring it down and possibly intact.  I’ve read up on these things, there are few that are known in New York.  If someone was to break in you go in and shut the door behind you.  If someone even found the room they couldn’t get in.”

“What’s to keep them from drilling through the walls?” Cassie asked looking at the cold little room in surprise.  A bank of television screens lined one wall and a telephone.

“Solid concrete for one with a steel lined framing and then added steel paneling and more concrete” Karin showed her a diagram.  “If the building came down it’s designed to ‘bounce’ per say and protect those inside, I’m not so certain that would work but theoretically you could survive here indefinitely.”  She indicated some boxes under a couple of bunks and then two more bunks that flipped down from the walls “those are full of dried foods that would keep you alive indefinitely.”

“What about sanitary needs?” Cassie looked on wonderingly.

“Did you ever see the movie ‘Panic Room’ with Jodie Foster?”

Cassie shook her head and looked around for a shower or toilet she watched as Karin showed her how it flipped down and lined up with a discrete covered hole that allowed drainage.  “Well this is a self-contained room like they had in that movie, I can’t believe you never watched it” she teased knowing she was the movie-holic in this relationship.  “The room is separate from the rest of the apartment, even the rest of the building actually, the phone line is separate and as I pay for it by the year no one would ever question its existence, they might think it’s for my office.”

“Does it hook up through your office?” Cassie asked still not getting the whole picture.

Karin shook her head “no, it has its own separate line, in fact if you didn’t know this room was here you would never know the lines, the batteries that control the power, the separate water supply even existed.  It’s a safe room in case of an emergency.”

“But why would you need something like this?”

Karin didn’t want to scare her “you never know, New York can be a frightful place and I wanted you to know about it.  Come here, I want to get your hand print on file for the computer to recognize it in the event you need to use it.”

Cassie was overwhelmed; she had never imagined such a thing existed.  It was creepy.  Karin powered up the computer and pulled out a tray that quickly took a scan of Cassie’s hands, first her right and then her left.  Kiddingly Cassie asked “wouldn’t a retina scan be more accurate?” thinking this was all too science fiction for her.

Karin actually nodded “probably but I don’t want to bring anyone in here to change the technology, the blueprints on this building show nothing of this room and only one of the apartments I own has one as well, I started looking in each of them when I renovated them, I rent out the entire place to someone very important who has need of such a room.”

Cassie shook her head as Karin explained how the monitors worked and that there were discrete hidden cams around the apartment.  She showed her how to fire it all up and where the cameras were. 

“I didn’t want to say anything when I thought the place was bugged.  Only someone with incredible depth perception would see that this room, the bathroom, and my office don’t quite line up exactly.  It’s how this room is invisible to the average person.”

“But why baby, what possibly could happen that a room like this would be necessary.  I know New York is a dangerous place but come on,
a nuclear catastrophe?
”  Cassie wasn’t buying it but with her down-home country attitude she hadn’t really thought this way.

“Baby, you never know and although I like the security measures in my building, you never know and I prefer you to know about this and never use it.  You can’t mention this to anyone, ever.”

Cassie agreed and wondered if they would ever use it.  D.O.G. and C.A.T both came in to sniff around the unfamiliar room as Karin showed her how to power down the system.  It wasn’t that difficult or complicated.  “So you can see the whole apartment, outside, even tap into the elevator and the buildings security system from here?” she asked as Karin showed her the gadgets.

“Well the elevator and buildings system I had to bribe someone, I’ve checked, they never said anything that I can tell but I paid enough for their silence and they don’t know about this room anyway, for all they know I’m just a voyeur” she grinned to show she was joking.

Cassie shook her head and watched as Karin showed her how to power it down, how to use the toilet, and what supplies were in the boxes which also included ones for the pets.  “If all hell breaks loose though baby, just save your own ass” she advised nodding toward the animals which could probably take care of themselves pretty well on their own if an intruder made the mistake of breaking in.  There had been that bug on the phone though so someone she knew had planted that.  She wondered who had and how long it had been there since she rarely had people up here but with a dog walker, a plant waterer, and maid service you never knew.

Cassie shivered hoping she never needed this claustrophobic room.  “What about breathing?” she asked looking around.

Karin showed her the filter system that went through a discrete pipe to a wall over the bathroom to the outer wall of the building and was hidden “I’ve checked, there is a brick on the outside of the building that looks like a normal brick but is actually a vent” she informed the amazed Cassie.  “It comes in here through the filter before you even breathe it; it also takes out the air from here so you aren’t asphyxiated.”

Karin had Cassie close up the room after they herded the curious pets out.  “Have you ever used it?”

Karin shook her head “nope, no need but it is here if you ever need it.”

“Not likely” Cassie said what she was hoping and decided Nashville looked better and better.

             
Monday morning Karin walked into her office and asked if Mr. Kreske was in the office yet.  It was 9a.m. and Karin was pleasantly surprised to find that he was.  She didn’t realize her formal use of the name “Mr. Kreske” instead of Elliott set some antennae’s up.  Walking back to his office she indicated to his personal secretary if she could go in and was waved on.  Elliott was reading over the morning paper as he sat on his couch, reclined.

             
“Well good morning” he said with a smile at his favorite PR expert.

             
Karin smiled back as she opened her case and handed him an envelope “Good morning Elliott, I hope you had a nice weekend” she responded pleasantly.

             
“I did, we went out to Montauk and had a barbeque.  The first of the season, you should really come out this summer” he answered as he took the envelope from her “what is this?” he asked.

             
“It’s my formal resignation” she told him and then held her breath a little trying to calm her beating heart.

             
“You’re what?” he asked incredulously looking up at her in alarm.

             
“My resignation” she said quietly staring him down.

             
He opened the envelope and read quickly.  It was all very much in order.  He looked up at her angrily and asked “and what do you intend to do?”

             
She shrugged non-commitally.  “I need a long vacation.  I’ve worked non-stop for years.  Its time I took some time for myself and enjoy what I’ve earned.”

             
“We gave you plenty of vacations” he began.

             
“Working vacations Elliott,
working
vacations” she clarified.  “I need time for me.  I’ve done a lot for you and surely you don’t begrudge me time for me.”