Single White Female

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Authors: John Lutz

BOOK: Single White Female
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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.
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.

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