REPRESENTED (51 page)

Cassie had never been as frightened as she was at this moment.  Inside the safe room that Karin had shown her so long ago she felt protected but from what she could see on the monitors she was frightened, very frightened.  She had barely had time to get the pets inside the room with her, they had shot in out of curiosity and become as trapped as she was.  Don hadn’t been as lucky as she saw on the monitors that the guard and Don had all received the same fate as well as whoever had come up in the elevator with them.  She had tried the phone line, it wasn’t working or so she thought.  It was because it was so old and the alarm company hadn’t seen it ‘used’ in so long that an incompetent at the other end disregarded the alarm.

Cassie could see that the two intruders had beaten the bodyguard and stunned him with a stun gun, the wires still attached to the gun before hitting him repeatedly with a baseball bat.  The bludgeoning in of the front door with said bat had sent her into a panic and she had headed for the secret room.  Don hadn’t believed her and instead played the ‘protective male’ as she finally closed the door to the room to protect herself.  Her sounding of the alarm, the phone calls to the police, nothing hurried things along.  She could see the horror on the monitors as they beat Don senseless.  She could only hope and pray that they didn’t kill him, didn’t murder him.  They were now destroying the apartment as they tried to get through the door to the room she was now in.  She could see it all on the monitors, they couldn’t see the cameras, and they were too well hidden as Karin had shown her.

God, Karin, she was due home anytime soon.  She was going to meet with Don to discuss some of what they had done to get Cassie’s new songs heard, played, and shown on the various Country Music stations and television.  If she came home to
this
!  They would kill her this time! 

The cat and the dog lay on one of the cots and looked at her expectantly waiting to see what she would do.  Cassie didn’t know
what
to do.  She had sounded the alarm, she had called the police on the phone, she could only wait and she was terrified.  The two masked intruders were all in black but they hadn’t come up in the elevator like that, they were two women and had pulled off their disguises to hide behind the black disguises.  Where were the police?  Hadn’t they believed her?  Hadn’t they checked at the alarm company?

Karin’s taxi dropped her off in front of her apartment building.  There seemed to be a number of police cars parked in front and around the side.  Her heart dropped as the worst went through her mind.  They might not be here because of her own apartment, because of Cassie; they might not be here for them at all.  She could only hope as she made her way through the crowd that had gathered.

“Ms. Myers!” a relieved voice called from where she was stopped by a police officer holding back the crowd.

She looked up glad to see Carl and he motioned her through the barrier.

“She’s a tenant” he assured the officer who let her by.

“What’s going on?” she asked hoping and praying it wasn’t the answer she thought it might be.  Her head was pounding though as she remembered her own incident over a year ago.

“Someone broke into one of the apartments” he told her being careful not to tell her it was her own.  “The police are up there but are having trouble getting the intruders out.  They are holding someone hostage” he mentioned looking sideways at her and wondering how she would react.  Before he would have thought the Ice Queen would be coldly meticulous about finding out the information to ‘her’ building, but since her ‘accident’ she was never what they expected, she behaved angrily about the most innocent of things so he wasn’t sure how to break it to her.  Instead he was leading her to one of the principal investigators.

“Lieutenant, this is Karin Myers, she owns the apartment” he said and stepped back so that he wouldn’t be hit by whatever fall-out that Ms. Myers might explode with.

“Ms. Myers, you own the apartment on the 25th floor?” a tall dark haired man asked her.

Karin was trying not to become anxious, not to worry about was going on but all the police she saw standing around and now looking at her inquiringly made her start to sweat.  Karin Myers, the Ice Queen was beginning to panic.  She nodded not answering and wondering what was going on?  Where was Cassie in all this, maybe she hadn’t arrived yet?  “Yes, I own the apartments up there.  What’s going on?”

“We got an emergency call from inside the apartment but the line wasn’t steady and we lost it but from what I understand there were a couple of intruders.  They knocked out the elevator attendant and we have found a body outside the apartment and the door has been broken down.  What can you tell me, what do you know?” he asked studying her and wondering what was going on.  They had very little to go on.

“Has the security company alarm gone off?” Karin asked wondering what she could tell him without giving out too much information.

He nodded “they called us but they weren’t certain it was legitimate either, apparently it went to an old number.”

Karin cursed herself for not having updated it.  In her desire for privacy had she actually sacrificed security?  Who had called the cops though?  Who had activated the alarm?  That meant someone was in the apartment.  Cassie!  She made a gesture to head to the elevators but a cop grabbed her arm.  “My fiancée is up there” she snarled angrily.

“Do you know that for certain?” the lieutenant asked her wondering at the details he didn’t have yet and wanting them.

“No one else could have made that phone call or activated the alarm.  There is a secure room in the apartment” she told him coldly wrenching her arm from the cop who had grabbed her and glaring at him warningly.

“You have a panic room?” he asked to be certain, they weren’t unheard of but they weren’t that common.

She nodded and said “have you caught the intruders?”

He shook his head “they claim to have someone as a hostage” he informed her.  “Who is your fiancée?”

She debated telling him for a second but then thought perhaps the name might bring her a better level of service, everyone was impressed by fame, it was just her that wasn’t.  “Cassie Summers” she said and watched as the wonder came over his face.  She had done her job well.  Don had as well.  Cassie Summers was well known all over.

“You think that’s who is being held in the apartment?” another cop asked her.  As she hadn’t been introduced she didn’t answer him.  She looked instead at the lieutenant.

“Who exactly are you?” she asked the lieutenant.  She couldn’t very well just keep calling him by his rank.

“I’m Lieutenant Murphy, this is my partner Sergeant Stokes.  So you are saying Cassie Summers is being held up there?” he asked to clarify.

She shook her head “not held, she is probably safe in the safe room and
they can’t get in
” she hoped and prayed at least that they couldn’t.

The two cops exchanged looks and the Sergeant, forgetting for a moment that Karin was standing there asked the Lieutenant “you think it’s a bluff?”

“Of course it’s a bluff, they don’t have bupkiss and they can’t get in that room” Karin said hotly feeling a little faint at the thought that Cassie was up there and alone?  No, she had Don with her, or at least she hoped she did.  “What about Don?” she asked aloud.

“Who is Don?” the Lieutenant asked trying to get more details out of the woman.

“Don Dreamcatcher is her manager” she said trying to make it simple.  A manager was so not what he was, he was so much more than that but explaining it would take just too damn long.

He shook his head as he exchanged a look with the Sergeant “we don’t know that there is a second person being held hostage at this time.”

“She isn’t being held hostage, whoever is up there is bullshitting you, they can’t get in the safe room and meanwhile Cassie is watching them on closed circuit TV and is probably terrified” Karin returned hotly.

“How do you know this?” the Sergeant asked looking at her for signs that she was lying to them.

“It’s my apartment” she snarled angrily feeling the unreasonable anger she was subject to these days rising and not caring in the least.  “I remodeled it, I found that room and restocked it and rewired it!  I know exactly what she is seeing if she is in that room!”

“Please wait here” the Lieutenant said and the two of them walked away.  Karin was not thrilled.  They should rush the apartment and get Cassie out of there!

“Could you give us the layout of the apartment?” the sergeant asked her a while later.  They hadn’t really decided what to do about the situation, they had a hostage negotiator in route but they weren’t sure it was necessary with what the woman had told them.  If Cassie Summers was in the apartment and she was in the safe room then who exactly were they holding hostage?

Karin was annoyed.  She didn’t know the number to call to get into the safe room and she wasn’t certain Cassie had her cell on her.  She didn’t want the intruders to know any more information than what they had so she wasn’t sure she should even try to call.  She sighed and drew out a rough map of the apartment including the hidden room with several cops looking on.

The hostage negotiator had arrived and they had gotten nowhere with the intruders.  All they knew was that the person on the phone was female and not making any demands.  She didn’t want safe escort, she didn’t want anything outrageous, she wanted nothing, just to be left alone, she had hostages (this they weren’t certain of) but she was demanding nothing.

Karin was exhausted at the wait as she sat on a couch in the lobby.  The unconscious body of Stan the elevator attendant for today had been retrieved.  She was grateful he was at least alive.  She looked at the EMT’s taking out the body and shook her head wondering what was going on upstairs.  She had broken down and called Cassie’s cell number but gotten an irritating beep so she didn’t know if it was out of range or what.  If it was on Cassie and she was in the safe room then it might not be picking up a signal.

Cassie looked at the monitors.  She could see them going through the entire apartment, smashing things at random since they had determined they couldn’t get into the safe room.  She had tried calling out again and again but the phone wasn’t working properly and she didn’t know why.  She looked at it for hours and then it suddenly occurred to her that instead of trying 911 she should call someone else, maybe Karin could call the police for her?

“Hello?” Karin answered the strange phone number; she didn’t recognize it on her caller I.D.

“Karin?” Cassie tried to speak normal, she didn’t want to upset or alarm Karin.

“Oh thank God, Cassie” she said without thinking and the Lieutenant and Sergeant spun around in consternation and started to walk over to where she sat.  She held up a hand.  “Where are you?”

“Um, I’m in the apartment” Cassie said, she could hear the anxiety in Karin’s voice and wondered if she knew what was going on.

“Are you in the safe room?” Karin asked concerned wondering if she hadn’t made it in time.

Cassie was surprised and nodded and then realizing Karin couldn’t see a nod answered in a small scared voice “yes.”

“Can you see how many people are in the apartment?” Karin asked trying to draw the facts out.  She could hear the fear in Cassie’s voice and it scared her.  Her head was beginning to throb from the worry.  She could tell exactly where the plates were in her scalp as she rubbed her forehead.  The Lieutenant was making gestures that she should give him her cell phone, she shook her head.

“There are two, they are women and I think they killed the body guard and I can’t tell but they may have killed Don too” she sobbed giving into her fear.

“But you’re okay?” Karin asked, her concern was only about Cassie, and where she was.

“I am for now, but the police don’t answer, could you call them?” Cassie asked, her voice betraying her terror as she glanced at the monitors.

“What do you mean they don’t answer, didn’t you hit the alarm?” Karin was asking, trying to keep the questions going in a methodical way as she avoided the Lieutenant’s reach for her phone, swatting away his hand.

“I hit the alarm and tried calling 911 but they didn’t believe me and the line was bad” Cassie could hear the crackling in the line again which had been her problem earlier, she was afraid to lose this call, this line, and to the woman she loved more than life itself.

“But you are safe in the room, they can’t get to you?” Karin asked trying to reassure her, to reassure herself as well.

“Yes, they tried to break in, they broke the hidden wall but they can’t get through into here” she answered, her hands had started to shake in reaction.  “I’ve got D.O.G. and C.A.T. in here with me” she added to reassure Karin.

Karin hadn’t thought of the pets but it relieved her in the corner of her mind, she wasn’t worried about her fur kids though, she only cared at the moment about the woman being terrorized in their apartment.  “That’s good baby” she said in answer.  “The police are here and they are working to get you out, I’m going to give the phone to one of them okay?”

“I don’t know if ….” But the line crackled and went dead again.

The lieutenant had grabbed the phone in his attempts to get on it to get information that they could use to end this situation.  Hearing the dead line though he stared at the phone in disgust and then turned the look on Karin.