Andrea Harding had gone to bed late in order to finish packing. Her graduation from Princeton, followed by a party with her family, had been two days ago, and she had put off packing long enough. Today—actually yesterday—she had finished packing and prepping her condominium in order to lease it out for the summer. She planned to spend a couple of weeks with her father, Nicholas Harding, and would then go to Europe for the summer before staring law school at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina that fall.
Andrea heard an incessant noise—Rachmaninoff’s “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini”—and coming out of a deep sleep, recognized the ring tone of her iPhone docked in its iHome base.
Now at least semi-awake, Andrea reached out to pull the phone out of the dock. She also glanced at the time displayed on the iHome front screen and wondered who could be calling her at three o’clock in the morning.
“Hello?” she answered.
“Ms. Harding?” replied a firm sounding, but unrecognizable male voice.
“Yes, who is calling please?”
“Ms. Harding, are you awake?” the unknown, but commanding voice replied.
Andrea was now fully awake and beginning to become alarmed. Calls from strangers at three o’clock in the morning could not be a good thing.
“Yes,” she replied, “but I need to know who is calling.”
“This is Sergeant Thompson, New Jersey State Police, and Officer Harris. We are downstairs at your front door. It is important that we speak to you in person ma’am. Can you please come down? We have our identification to show you.”
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