A Guide to the Hidden Language of Predators

Cans of cat food rolled from her grocery bags and down the steps as Kelly started the trudge to her walk-up apartment.

Then from below, someone offered to bring the cans up to her. He was cute. Smiling. Well-dressed. Why worry?

Next, he offered to help her carry the overloaded bags upstairs. She said no thanks. But then she let him.

He said he’d leave her front door open and just help her get the groceries inside. She didn’t need help, but why be rude to this nice person? So she consented.

Later, after he’d raped her, he got dressed, closed the window, said he was thirsty. He’d get a glass of water and be gone. “Hey, don’t look so scared. I promise I’m not going to hurt you.”

She knew then that he would kill her.

Instead of staying put as he’d commanded, she followed behind him, her bare feet making no sound. She walked out of her apartment and into the safety of a neighbor’s.

Kelly’s story is told here in code. Unless you read Gavin de Becker’s new book, “The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us From Violence” (Little, Brown and Co.), you cannot know how to decipher the code. Every gesture and sentence from the man--his smile, his gentle attempt to help, his promises, the closed window--were clues that he would hurt Kelly.

And every hesitation that Kelly pushed away as overly cautious was a legitimate life-saving signal.

The unsolicited promise, for example, is almost always a danger signal, the author says.

“Why does a person promise?” asks De Becker. “Because he is trying to convince you of something.” The reason he needs to convince you is because you have doubt, which you haven’t expressed, but which he knows is legitimate--because he knows his own intentions.

If you read De Becker’s book, you will understand why you must never ignore the tiny flickers of doubt that tell you not to drive or walk down a certain street, or answer a stranger’s question, or walk to your car in the mall at night even though there is no one around who looks menacing. We’re talking fear here--that niggling, embarrassing quiver that makes you feel cowardly, impolite or unmasculine, because there seems to be absolutely no concrete reason for it.

De Becker proves there usually is a reason. Your brain has absorbed and analyzed legitimate danger signals faster than your conscious mind can process them. Instead of feeling wimpy and forging ahead, you should turn and run like hell.