Her flight home was delayed three hours. That’s three hours I could have spent walking along the Seine, she thought as she sat disgruntled in Charles de Gaulle. Three hours I could have wandered the Marais or poked around in Les Halles. Instead she was trapped in an airport so crowded with travelers she could find no place to sit. By the time she finally boarded the Air France jet, she was tired and thoroughly cranky. One glass of wine with the in-flight meal was all it took for her to fall into a deep and dreamless sleep.

Only as the plane began its descent into Boston did she awaken. Her head ached, and the setting sun glared in her eyes. The headache intensified as she stood in baggage claim, watching suitcase after suitcase, none of them hers, slide down the ramp. It grew to a relentless pounding as she later waited in line to file a claim for her missing luggage. By the time she finally stepped into a taxi with only her carry-on bag, darkness had fallen, and she wanted nothing more than a hot bath and a hefty dose of Advil. She sank back in the taxi and once again drifted off to sleep.

The sudden braking of the vehicle awakened her.

“What’s going on here?” she heard the driver say.

Stirring, she gazed through bleary eyes at flashing blue lights. It took a moment for her to register what she was looking at. Then she realized that they had turned onto the street where she lived, and she sat up, instantly alert, alarmed by what she saw. Four Brookline police cruisers were parked, their roof lights slicing through the darkness.

“Looks like some kind of emergency going on,” the driver said. “This is your street, right?”

“And that’s my house right down there. Middle of the block.”

“Where all the police cars are? I don’t think they’re gonna let us through.”

As if to confirm the taxi driver’s words, a patrolman approached, waving at them to turn around.

The cabbie stuck his head out the window. “I got a passenger here I need to drop off. She lives on this street.”