Single White Female Read online

  Highest Praise for Single White Female

  “John Lutz just keeps getting better and better.

  SWF is great!”

  —Tony Hillerman

  “SWF is a complex, riveting, and chilling portrayal of

  urban terror, as well as a wonderful novel of New York

  City. Echoes of Rosemary’s Baby, but this one’s scarier

  because it could happen.”

  —Jonathan Kellerman

  “Day by day and hour by hour, John Lutz weaves a net of

  eerie menace and compelling suspense culminating in an

  explosion of violence that will leave you thinking twice

  before placing an ad in your local newspaper.”

  —Robert Campbell

  “Prepare yourself for a terrific read . . . With completely

  credible characters and nearly incredible suspense, John

  Lutz tugs you into the depths of an urban nightmare. If

  ever a book deserved to be adapted for film, SWF is it.”

  —Jeremiah Healy

  “A stunning psychological suspense thriller . . . a

  chilling, mesmerizing read.”

  —Thomas Chastain

  “Effective . . . Gotham paranoia at its creepiest.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “A contemporary horror tale that few readers will be able

  to put down . . . A quiet air of menace develops, enhanced

  by Lutz’s simple, direct prose.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  . . . and for John Lutz

  “John Lutz knows how to make you shiver.”

  —Harlan Coben

  “Lutz offers up a heart-pounding roller coaster of a tale.”

  —Jeffery Deaver

  “John Lutz is one of the masters of the police novel.”

  —Ridley Pearson

  “John Lutz is a major talent.”

  —John Lescroart

  “I’ve been a fan for years.”

  —T. Jefferson Parker

  “Lutz ranks with such vintage masters of big-city murder

  as Lawrence Block and Ed McBain.”

  —St. Louis Post-Dispatch

  “Lutz is among the best.”

  —San Diego Union

  “Lutz knows how to seize and hold

  the reader’s imagination.”

  —Cleveland Plain Dealer

  “It’s easy to see why he’s won an Edgar

  and two Shamuses.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  Mister X

  “Mister X has everything: a dangerous killer, a pulse-

  pounding mystery, a shocking solution, and an ending

  that will resonate with the reader long after the final

  sentence is read.”

  —BookReporter.com

  “A page-turner to the nail-biting end . . .

  twisty, creepy whodunit.”

  —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  Urge to Kill

  “A solid and compelling winner . . . sharp

  characterization, compelling dialogue and graphic

  depictions of evil . . . Lutz knows how to keep

  the pages turning.”

  —BookReporter.com

  Night Kills

  “Lutz’s skill will keep you glued to this thick thriller.”

  —St. Louis Post-Dispatch

  “Superb suspense . . . the kind of book that makes you

  check to see if all the doors and windows are locked.”

  —Affaire de Coeur

  In for the Kill

  “Brilliant . . . a very scary and suspenseful read.”

  —Booklist

  “Shamus and Edgar award–winner Lutz gives us further

  proof of his enormous talent . . . an

  enthralling page-turner.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  Chill of Night

  “Since Lutz can deliver a hard-boiled p.i. novel or a

  bloody thriller with equal ease, it’s not a surprise to find

  him applying his skills to a police procedural in Chill of

  Night. But the ingenuity of the plot shows that Lutz is

  in rare form.”

  —The New York Times Book Review

  “Lutz keeps the suspense high and populates his story

  with a collection of unique characters that resonate with

  the reader, making this one an ideal beach read.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “A dazzling tour de force . . . compelling, absorbing.”

  —St. Louis Post-Dispatch

  “A great read! Lutz kept me in suspense right up

  to the end.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  Fear the Night

  “A twisted cat-and-mouse game . . . a fast-moving crime

  thriller . . . Lutz skillfully brings to life the

  sniper’s various victims.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “A a tense, fast-moving novel, a plot-driven page-turner of

  the first order . . . a great read!”

  —Book Page

  Darker Than Night

  “Readers will believe that they just stepped off a Tilt-A-

  Whirl after reading this action-packed police procedural.”

  —The Midwest Book Review

  Night Victims

  “John Lutz knows how to ratchet up the terror. . . . He

  propels the story with effective twists and a fast pace.”

  —Sun-Sentinel

  The Night Watcher

  “Compelling . . . a gritty psychological thriller . . . Lutz

  draws the reader deep into the killer’s troubled psyche.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  ALSO BY JOHN LUTZ

  *Pulse

  *Switch (e-book)

  *Serial

  *Mister X

  *Urge to Kill

  *Night Kills

  *In for the Kill

  Chill of Night

  Fear the Night

  *Darker Than Night

  Night Victims

  The Night Watcher

  The Night Caller

  Final Seconds (with David August)

  The Ex

  *featuring Frank Quinn

  Available from Kensington Publishing Corp. and

  Pinnacle Books

  SINGLE WHITE FEMALE

  JOHN LUTZ

  PINNACLE BOOKS

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Highest Praise for Single White Female

  ALSO BY JOHN LUTZ

  Title Page

  Dedication

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  Epilogue

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  PULSE

  Copyright Page

  For Dominick Abel

  Friend, of my intimate dreams

  Little enough endures;

  Little however
it seems,

  It is yours, all yours.

  —BENSON, The Gift

  A friend is, as it were, a second self.

  —CICERO, De Amicitia

  1

  Across West 74th Street the Cody Arms loomed like a medieval castle that had given birth to and formed the foundation of a thirty-story urban building. The lower four floors were constructed of ornate concrete and brownstone, framing a brass and tinted-glass entrance flanked by stone pillars. Spaced about ten feet apart on the first-floor ledge were leering gargoyles with chipped features that only added to their grotesqueness. They’d once been functional drains to divert rainwater from the entrance, but now a dark brown canopy served that purpose. The gargoyles didn’t seem to mind; now they could concentrate full-time on leering at passersby too preoccupied to glance up and notice them. There was iron grillwork over all the windows on the ground floor—for security. It only added to the baroque, lingering elegance of the old apartment building.

  In better times the Cody Arms had been the Cody Hotel. But in the Sixties business had fallen off and new owners milked profits without putting money into upkeep. The Cody had declined so far that it was impossible to reestablish its validity as a respectable hotel, so it was sold again to a faceless corporate entity that converted it into apartment units and turned it over to Haller-Davis Properties to manage. Again it was in a state of gradual decline, which was what made the rent there relatively reasonable for this part of town, though still not cheap.

  Allie Jones waited for a parade of cabs to growl and rattle past, then hurried across the rain-glistening street and up the old concrete steps to the entrance. She pushed through the door and crossed the tiled lobby to the elevators. There were dark smudges on the yellowed tile floor where cigarette butts had been ground out beneath heels. A faint scent of ammonia hung in the air. Apparently Gray the super, or the janitor service, had made a cursory pass at cleaning and disinfecting something, but not the graffiti on the wall by the mailboxes and intercoms. Boldly scrawled in black marking pen, as it had been for years, was the message LOVE KILS SCREW U. Allie occasionally wondered who had written it and what it meant exactly, though she had no desire to meet the author and ask.

  Squeezing her damp bag of groceries tighter, she leaned close to the wall between the elevator doors and pressed the UP button with her elbow. The round white button glowed feebly. Above the paneled sliding doors the ancient brass arrow that had been resting on 15 began its herky-jerky descent to the L that signified Lobby.

  There was no point in trying the intercom to make sure Sam would have her door unlocked when she reached the third floor. So often was it not working that tenants seldom used it, even when there was no “Out of order” sign taped beneath it. Though there were security precautions at the Cody Arms, people usually came and went as they pleased. With so many tenants, that was simply how it worked out. The street doors, on which any apartment key would work, were often locked after midnight, but just as often forgotten. The elevators were operable only with a tenant’s key inserted in their panels, but as long as Allie could remember, the same twisted keys had been in the slots. Once, out of curiosity, she’d tried to remove one and found it stuck in the keyhole as if welded there.

  The groceries got heavy, and Allie shifted them to her other arm just as the elevator arrived. It squeaked and groaned as it adjusted itself to floor level.

  The doors hissed open and an elderly man and a middle-aged redheaded woman stepped out. They didn’t seem to be together and didn’t look at each other or at Allie as they crossed the lobby toward the street door. Allie listened to the beat of their heels on the tile floor as the man moved ahead of the woman. He didn’t bother holding the door open for her. Neighbors. They probably hadn’t so much as glanced at each other in the elevator.

  New York was a city of strangers. The Cody was a building of strangers.

  That had its advantages.

  Such as making possible secret live-in lovers.

  Secret was the operative word.

  On the third floor, she walked down the narrow, musty-smelling hall to apartment 3H. She balanced the grocery sack on her outthrust hip while she fumbled her key from her purse and unlocked the door. Shifting her weight, she shoved the door open.

  “Sam? Me!”

  But the answering silence and stale, unmoving air told her she was alone.

  2

  Allie lay quietly and listened to the night push through the open window: the low, ocean sound of traffic that never ceased in Manhattan. The irrational and impatient blasting of a car horn. A woman’s high laughter from nearby down in the street. A distant shout demanding an answer. No answering shout. More laughter. The singsong wail of a siren that seemed to be getting nearer, then faded.

  Beside her Sam was sleeping, snoring lightly. They’d made love less than an hour ago, and the stale scent of their coupling still permeated the sheets and wafted occasionally into the fresh night air that was cleansing A1lie’s bedroom.

  She lay very still, not wanting to break the magic of time and contentment. Loving Sam had opened doors and windows in her mind, showed her depths of herself she’d never suspected existed. With it had come the need, the dependency on him that she’d fought so hard against. That, dammit, was something she hadn’t expected, at least not in its intensity.

  Finally she’d realized he needed her as much as she had to have him, and it was all right to be human, to risk—because he was risking too. The past six months of total commitment to Sam had been fantastic, but nothing like the last two months, after he’d given up his apartment and moved in with her. Those two months had been perfect, a confirmation of their love. It was the kind of thing she used to laugh at in lurid romance novels. Until she found romance.

  Sam Rawson was a broker’s representative for Elcane-Smith on Wall Street. He’d made a few clients wealthy, and had some of his own money invested and was waiting for it to build. He wanted to be rich; he’d smiled and told Allie it would be for her, however rich he became. She liked to let him talk about options and puts and calls and selling short, and technical graph configurations that foretold the future and seduced its followers with an accuracy and superstition arguably as potent as voodoo. Allie remotely understood what he was saying.

  Each day they’d kiss good-bye after breakfast and he’d cab downtown and merge his soul with the markets. Allie, who worked freelance as a computer programmer consultant, would go to her latest job and help to set up systems that would make someone’s business easier and more profitable. It often struck her as ironic that she and Sam were both in occupations that helped to make other people rich, while each of them needed to juggle their finances to pay their bills.

  Outside in the night, the woman had stopped laughing. A man yelled, “Hey, c’mon fuckin’ back!” Allie couldn’t be sure, but he sounded drunk.

  The woman screamed shrilly (if it was the same woman). Something glass, probably a bottle, shattered. In a softer but vicious voice, the man said, “Teach you, bitch!”

  Careful not to disturb Sam, Allie climbed out of bed and padded barefoot across the hard floor to the window. She looked down at the street. A few cars passed, gliding and ghostly. A cab with headlights shimmering and roof light glowing. Other than that, there was no movement on West 74th. No one in sight. Down the long avenue and on receding cross streets, strings of moving car lights traced through the night like low-flying comets in mysterious lazy orbit. Allie stared at the cars, wondering as she often did where they were all going at this lonely hour. What darkside destinations had the people in that beautiful, never-ending procession?

  She knew where she was going—back to bed.

  She retraced her steps across the cool, hard floor. Stretched out on her back, she laced her fingers behind her head and thought how violence always seemed to lurk near beauty, as if eager to balance the universe with its ugliness, like one of those fairy tales with underlying meanness. That was how it was in New York, anyway. Mayb
e everywhere, only not so close to the surface and evident, not breathing so deeply and not so bursting with corruption and raw life as in New York.

  She left the sheet tangled around her bare feet and lay stretched out nude, her arms at her sides, as if waiting to be sacrificed in some primitive religious ceremony, letting the breeze play over her. The cool pressure seemed to be exploring her as sensually as a lover, softly brushing the mounds of her breasts, caressing the sensitive flesh of her inner thighs. She felt a tension deep inside her, like taut strings vibrating, and for a moment thought about waking Sam.

  But it was so timeless and peaceful lying there, and they’d made love violently, leaving her somewhat sore. Sleep was the more sensible course.

  She reached down languidly and drew the light sheet up around her, deadening the night breeze’s sexual caresses.

  And fell asleep.

  When she awoke the next morning she was cold.

  Sam was in the shower.