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home, Jerry. As I said, I owe you a big debt and I intend to repay it.”
    “Hey, forget Il We’re cool here. I just happened to be around, you know.”
    Her purse was still where she had dropped it, in the middle of the sidewalk. She started to bend down to pick it up but Jerry beat her to it.
    For a moment, she wondered if he was going to take off with it. She felt foolish when he handed it to her.
    “Here you go.”
    “Thank you.” Together they walked back toward Jill’s building. The streets seemed less threatening now that she was no longer alone, but the raw fear she had experienced a few moments earlier clung to her like a bad odor. She could still feel the man’s powerful hands around her throat, hear her gasping breath.
    She turned, worried he might still be lurking nearby, but didn’t see anything.
    Back in the small lobby of her apartment building, she flipped a switch on the wall. In full light, Jerry
    Kranski wasn’t quite as frightening as he had seemed in the dark street. Except for the blond fuzz on his right cheek, proving he was old enough to shave, his face was almost childlike, with baby blue eyes, a small mouth and a pimple on his chin. The look was a sharp contrast to the purple spikes and the nose ring, but maybe that mixture of tough guy and sweet kid was what Jill found so appealing about him.
    “Well…” Under her stare he seemed to grow even more self-conscious. “If you’re sure you’re okay, I’d better go. My mom doesn’t like it when I break curfew.”
    Jill pulled a business card from her purse. “Will your mother be home tomorrow morning?”
    “I don’t know. Why?” He looked suddenly suspicious.
    “Because I’d like to stop by and tell her what a brave young man she has for a son. And because I want to do something for you,” she added gently.
    His chin went up a fraction of an inch. “I said we’re cool with this. And I don’t want any money.”
    “You saved my life, Jerry. That’s not something I can ignore. Or ever forget.” When he remained silent, Jill reached inside her purse again and pulled out a small address book. She handed it to him with a silver Cross pen. “Would you write down your address for me?”
    She watched him as he wrote, noting his concentration as he formed each letter. “Thank you,” she said when he was done. “I’ll see you tomorrow then?”
    He shrugged. “Yeah, I guess.”
    After locking the door behind him, Jill stepped into the elevator and punched the third-floor button. As the car began its slow ascent, she leaned against the mahogany panel and took a long breath. Her hands were shaking from her recent ordeal and she felt a pain in her tailbone where she had fallen.
    But as images of the attack kept replaying in her head, what she began to realize was even more frightening than the attack itself.
    What had happened to her was no accident. Someone had just tried to kill her.

Six
    Jerry Kranski turned out to be exactly who he claimed to be, an eighteen-year-old high-school graduate with a mother who worked at City Hall and a nine-year-old sister named Ginny.
    While Carol Kranski was very proud of her son’s good deed, she had been adamant in her refusal to take money from Jill. Over coffee and thick slices of freshly baked raisin bread, the three of them had finally agreed that Jill’s offer of a job at Bennett & Associates was a perfect compromise and couldn’t have come at a better time. The electronics shop where Jerry had worked since graduation was closing down, leaving the teenager without a job.
    “Don’t worry about the hair,” Carol told Jill as she walked her to the door an hour later. “Or the nose ring. As you can see, both come out during the day.”
    She glanced at her son, who was clearing away the coffee cups, and sighed. “He’s a good boy, but sometimes it’s hard for a single parent to compete with a teenager’s peers. That’s why I’m so happy about the job you just offered. It will give him