Caught Dead in Philadelphia by Gillian Roberts

before I headed around toward the school door. I walked slowly, trying to savor the sunshine, trying to delay my entry into a building filled with questions waiting to be asked.
    â€œHey! You!” The voice was almost as heavy and frightening as the sudden hand on my shoulder.
    I pulled away and backed off, ready to use—if I could only remember it—my one-day self-defense seminar. All I instantly recalled was the gouging-out-of-eyes part, which seemed excessive as a first response. Anyway, it was morning, and we were in a high school parking lot—a ridiculous time and place for a mugging.
    I ran three steps. The enormous man shouted. “Wait! You! Wait!” He managed to be at my side in about one stride, his bulk casting a shadow over me.
    â€œAre you out of your mind?” I broke into a run, aiming for the front of the building, where there would be safety in numbers. Our students never rushed inside, eager to beat the bell. But the alleyway was narrow, and the man caught hold of me as I swung left. This time he didn’t let go, although I struggled. He tugged and pulled me back, toward an oversized black car idling at the alley curb.
    Every organized crime cliché packed my head so tightly I couldn’t think. I was frozen, staring at the black limousine. Another figure sat behind the tinted glass.
    â€œLet me go!” I screamed as he opened the back door of the car. And then I remembered. I stopped tugging, wheeled on the monster, and aimed my knee straight up. That lesson was compliments of my original self-defense instructor, Mama, who had coughed and blushed and finally just spelled out what to do in desperate situations. I believe she meant something other than being dragged into a criminal’s car, but I didn’t care.
    My molester grunted and doubled over, still clutching my arm.
    â€œHaskell!” a voice from inside the car said. “You’re hurting her.”
    Haskell, looking like a hunchback, didn’t inform the voice that I had evened the score. Instead, he dropped my arm.
    â€œMiss Pepper!” the voice called.
    I waited. Haskell wouldn’t be racing after me for a while, and the voice sounded strangely familiar. “Mr. Cole?” I asked when the tinted glass rolled down.
    â€œJust a minute of your time, please,” he said calmly. “I apologize for Haskell’s methods. I didn’t mean for him to frighten you.” He glared at the beefy man; then he looked at his watch. “Miss Pepper, can I have five minutes? We’ll just ride around, and you’ll be back in time for class.” He opened the car door wider.
    My mother had told me all about cars and strange men, and Hayden Cole seemed very strange. I shook my head.
    â€œNow, Miss Pepper. I am not an old man offering candy,” he said, annoyed. I felt ashamed, as if he’d read my thoughts. “Five minutes?”
    A sliver of normal, nonparanoid perception returned. Hayden Cole was not exactly the Godfather. I got into the car. “Five minutes,” I said.
    â€œOnce again I apologize for Haskell’s behavior.” He paused and seemed to consider things. “And mine,” he finally added.
    â€œWhat is it you want?”
    I looked at his profile, contained and still. Less than twenty-four hours earlier, the man’s bride-to-be had been smashed to death. I couldn’t see any evidence of heavy mourning, but perhaps I didn’t understand good breeding.
    The car circled the general area of the school, slowly going nowhere. I waited for an explanation. I waited quite a while. My tension level increased with each second of silence.
    He blinked a few times; then he took a thin cigar out of a case, clipped off the end, and bit it. Smoking cigars does not seem politically wise. Neither was it particularly pleasant in a car in the morning, even to a smoke-starved woman such as I. I waved at the air. He ignored me.
    I wondered if he had