Single white female

27

SHE didn't realize until she was inside and had shut the apartment door that this wasn't shelter. She'd been stupid to come here. Sam might have something on him that would tell the police where she lived. Hedra might have seen to that. Hedra! Would Hedra have returned here?

A few feet inside the door, Allie stood in darkness, listening. The apartment was silent.

Even if the police learned her identity and address, she was sure she had some time. She walked into the living room and switched on a lamp.

There was her empty cup where she'd left it on the folded Village Voice on the table. The remote control for the TV rested where she remembered, on the arm of the sofa. The phone sat on the floor next to the wing chair. Where she'd left it.

Everything seemed to be exactly as it was when she'd hurried out of the apartment.

She switched on more lights and moved toward the hall to the bedrooms. In the glow cast from so many sources, a dozen dim shadows moved with her. Her legs felt rubbery but she wasn't tired. There was an engine in her chest; she was running on adrenaline.

She glanced in the bathroom and felt a sudden nausea, remembering the bathroom at the Atherton Hotel.

At the door to Hedra's old bedroom she stopped. She reached around the doorjamb, into the room, and groped across rough plaster for the plastic wall switch, found it, and flicked it upward. The overhead fixture winked on.

Allie almost expected to find something hideous inside. Some further manifestation of Hedra's madness. But this room, too, was as she'd left it. There was, in fact, a special kind of blankness about it, as if, like Hedra, it yearned to be imprinted with personality.

Knowing her time inside the apartment was limited, Allie decided to pack some of her clothes in her carry-on and then get out fast. She'd fetch her red-and-white TWA bag down from her closet shelf and quickly stuff it with whatever seemed appropriate. She wanted only to get clear of the Cody Arms before the police arrived, to run and hide somewhere so she could take time and try to think this nightmare through, figure a way out.

Allie was having difficulty breathing, as if she were being crushed in a vise. She knew there was nothing of Hedra anywhere in the apartment. She felt like screaming, but she covered her mouth with her hand and willed herself to be silent. Slumped on the mattress, she sat with her elbows on her knees, meshing her fingers so tightly they ached. She sat paralyzed, still trying to fully comprehend what had happened, what it meant. On the opposite wall she saw a spider racing diagonally toward the molding up near the ceiling, seeking shelter in shadow.

Then something deep in her stirred to life. A quiet rage and a primal determination to survive. Ancient voices speaking.

She got up and located the canvas carry-on, crumpled and shoved to the back of her closet shelf, behind her folded sweaters. She grabbed a few clothes from the closet and stuffed them inside, ignoring the hangers that dropped to the floor. Zipped the bag closed, tearing a fingernail. She'd tend to that later.

Careful not to get Sam's blood on her hands, she untied her jogging shoes and worked them off her feet. The blood, russet-colored now, hadn't soaked through; her socks weren't stained. She put on her pair of almost new Nikes, then she slung her purse and the carry-on by their straps over her right shoulder.

After a brief detour to the kitchen to poke several gra-nola bars into the carry-on, she hurried to the front door and let herself out into the hall. She kept straining to hear approaching sirens, but there were only the normal sounds of traffic. Once, sparking a moment of panic, she heard a distant siren that was obviously moving away and quickly faded.

She was ten feet from the elevator doors when she heard the thrum of cables and the oiled metallic grinding of an elevator arriving. Fear grabbed her again.

Hoping none of her neighbors would open an apartment door and see her, she ran down the hall toward the rear fire stairs, staying up on the balls of her feet so she'd make as little noise as possible.

As she was rounding the corner, she paused despite herself and glanced back, saw the elevator doors slide open. Four men filed out of the elevator. Two of them wore drab gray suits. The other two wore the old-fashioned blue uniforms of the New York City Police Department. None of them was smiling; they had somber, anxious expressions and moved almost with the precision of a drill team. They turned right, away from Allie, and didn't see her.

She decided against the fire stairs and rode the service elevator down instead. Didn't the police always have someone watching fire escapes? Waiting in the shadows?

The lobby was deserted, but she could see a patrol car parked directly in front of the building. A uniformed officer was sitting behind the steering wheel, and a pulsating haze of exhaust rose from beneath the rear bumper, like life escaping.

Allie's heart was double-pumping and her mouth was dry. Back way! Back way! Keeping an eye on the police car, she sidestepped to the oversized freight door, about twenty feet from the service elevator. She rotated the knob and pushed on the heavy door.

It opened only a few inches. She could see a glint of steel, a heavy hasp and padlock on the outside. No escape that way.

She stood there for a moment, lightheaded, then ran down the hall to a room where she knew cleaning equipment was stored.

She'd intended to hide there until the police left, but as soon as she was inside she saw a small, high window with steel mesh over it.

Standing on a square can of cleaning fluid that popped and twanged under her weight, she forced the old wooden window open. The steel mesh was ancient and rusted, but it looked strong. Allie inserted her fingers through it, gripped hard, and worked it back and forth, at first very slightly, then an inch or two each way.

It was installed to resist pressure from the outside, not designed to keep people in. The top of it gave. Then one side. Ignoring the pain in her fingers, she bent the mesh back against the window frame, then forward in wider and wider arcs.

And suddenly it broke free and dropped into the gangway alongside the building.

Allie got down from the can she'd been standing on and placed it on top of an upside down metal bucket. Stood on the can again, carefully balancing herself, and managed to squeeze her head and shoulders through the window into cool outside air. Freedom.

She thrashed around with her right leg, found leverage with her foot, and pushed herself through the window to drop and lie on the concrete pavement. Ouch! Her elbow was on the sharp steel mesh she'd broken from the frame. There was a clanging noise as the bucket and can tipped over inside the storage room.

She struggled to her feet in a hurry, brushed rust and dirt off her clothes, and made her way along the gangway to West 74th. She emerged at the corner of the building, behind the parked police car with its motor idling.

Unless the cop behind the steering wheel happened to be looking in his rearview mirror, he wouldn't see her.

When he seemed to move his head to glance in the opposite direction, she put on a casual air, did a sharp turn out of the gangway, and walked quickly away.

Realizing she'd left her purse and the carry-on in the storage room.