The Night Stalker

One Hundred and Five

Garcia’s eyes widened in surprise. He thought he’d heard wrong, but the expression on Hunter’s face left little doubt.

‘Andrew Harper. .?’ Hunter repeated, keeping his voice steady.

A chuckle came down the phone. ‘No one has called me Andrew in twenty years.’ The sentence was delivered in a calm tone. His voice like a muffled whisper. Hunter remembered the whispering voice he’d heard on the recording Myers had retrieved from Katia Kudrov’s answering machine.

‘Do you miss being called by your real name?’ Hunter’s tone matched Andrew’s.

Silence.

‘I know you were there, Andrew. I know you saw what happened that day in your house. But why did you run? Where did you go? Why didn’t you allow people to help you?’

‘Help me?’ He laughed.

‘No one could’ve coped with what you went through alone. You needed help then. You need help now.’

‘Cope? How could anyone cope with watching his father transform into a monster right in front of his eyes? A father who only hours earlier had given me the best presents I’d ever got. A father who’d promised me that everything would be fine. That there’d be no more fights. A father who said that he loved my mother and me more than anything. What kind of love is that?’

Hunter didn’t have an answer.

‘I’ve researched you. You used to be a psychologist, didn’t you? Do you think you could’ve helped me cope?’

‘I would’ve done my best.’

‘That’s bullshit.’

‘No, it isn’t. Life isn’t meant for us to go through it on our own. We all need help from time to time. No matter how strong or tough we think we are. A person alone just can’t deal with certain life situations. Especially not when you’re only ten years old.’

Silence.

‘Andrew?’

‘Stop calling me Andrew. You don’t have the right to do that. No one does. Andrew died that night, twenty years ago.’

‘OK. What name would you like me to call you?’

‘You don’t need to call me anything. But since you were so kind to fuck everything up. To go digging into something you had no right to, I have a surprise for you too. I take it that your phone has video-streaming capabilities, right?’

Hunter frowned.

‘I’m sending you a short video I made earlier. I hope you enjoy it.’

The line went dead.

‘What happened?’ Garcia asked.

Hunter shook his head. ‘He’s sending me some sort of video.’

‘A video? Of what?’

Hunter’s phone beeped — Incoming video request.

‘I guess we’re just about to find out.’