Chapter Three ~ Just Water , Please.  At work I had a difficult time focusing on my project; after all, I had left someone who was basically a stranger alone in my apartment.  I don’t know what I must have been thinking; there was something so engaging about  her that I simply had felt like I knew her.  By 1:00 I was filled with questions and concerns, and I called home to ask Lindsey to come back after her appointment  and stay with me rather than checking in to a hotel.  I wanted to learn why ,after not hearing form C.C. for so long, had he and Lindsey appeared on my doorstep out of the blue.  Other questions cluttered my mind.  Where had C.C. gone, and why hadn’t I heard from him? In the conversation  that he and I had , he never once mentioned Lindsey.  Why not?  Why did Lindsey write a letter to him, send it in my care, and then suddenly appear? Why was she  not more concerned about his disappearance ? I thought of the unopened letter and wished I had exercised less restraint. I wish I had opened  it.  I certainly would do so when I arrived home.  Maybe it would provide some answers.  By the fifth ring I had assumed that Lindsey must already have left for her appointment when the phone was answered gruffly by a male voice.  The more demanding I was in inquiring who he was, the more he insisted on knowing my name.  Although I was perturbed about having to explain myself to a stranger answering my phone, I explained that I was Justine Carter and that he was intruding in my apartment.  My anger turned to panic when he alerted me that he was Detective Pearson and needed to speak with me immediately and I must return home now. I slumped back into my chair.  Initially the questions racing through my head were information based.  Had someone broken  in to my apartment?  Why were the police called, and who called them? Was Lindsey still there?  On the train ride home, my questions shifted.  The entire ride home was a blur as the personal affront began to take hold of me.  What was happening and why was it happening to me?  As I looked in the faces of other commuters, I saw people who looked like their day was no different from any other day.  “They weren’t hurrying home to find why a detective had answered the phones in their apartments!” I  held my throbbing head.  I began to feel angry with my disappearing houseguest for introducing this chaos into my life.  I had enjoyed a sense of calmness and order .  Now I wondered if my life would ever be the same. Upon arriving home I was greeted with the havoc surrounding a television crime scene, but the horror of it all was that the ambulance, squad cars, and yellow tape were at my home, at my apartment!  Immediately inside I was mesmerized by a huge wine red pool of blood in front of the couch.  Lindsey had been zipped into a body bag and was being removed on a gurney.  In a nightmarish daze, I was quickly ushered through my living room to the bedroom where Detective Ian Pearson guided me to a chair.  Perhaps I was pitiful because the detective who had been so gruff and insensitive on the phone leaned down to look me in the eyes ,assured me that I was not the subject of police inquiry , and inquired as to whether I needed a drink. “No, no”, I stammered, just water ,please.