The Night Stalker

Thirty-One

Whitney Myers stood still, staring at the computer screen and the audio lines as they vibrated like electrified worms. Cohen had just loaded the digital recording Gus had given him onto his computer. The once jumbled whisper she’d retrieved from Katia Kudrov’s answering machine was now as clear as daylight.

‘YOU TAKE MY BREATH AWAY. .’ Pause. ‘WELCOME HOME, KATIA. I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR YOU. I GUESS IT’S FINALLY TIME WE MET.’

The recording was on an endless loop, playing through Cohen’s loudspeakers. After the fifth time, Myers finally tore her eyes away from the screen and hit the Esc key.

‘Gus said this is actually his voice, there’s no electronic device disguising it?’

Cohen nodded. ‘But he was clever. He used his own whisper to alter it. If he’s ever caught, we’ll never get a voice match. At least not with this recording.’

Myers stepped back from Cohen’s desk, lightly running two fingertips against her top lip. She always did that when she was thinking. She knew she had to play the recording to Leonid Kudrov when she met him at his house in two hours’ time. She had no doubt it would drive terror into an already petrified heart.

‘Do you still have my Dictaphone with all the sixty messages?’ she asked, returning to her desk and flipping through her notebook.

‘Yep, right here.’

‘OK, play the last message again.’ She paused. ‘Actually, just after the last message. What I’m interested in is the electronic answering machine voice announcing the time the message was left.’

‘Eight forty-two in the evening,’ Cohen replied automatically.

Myers’ eyebrows rose.

‘I listened to it so many times it’s etched on my brain,’ he explained.

‘You’re sure?’

‘Positive.’

Myers’ eyes returned to her notebook. ‘According to Katia’s father, he called his daughter from his cell phone at eight fifty-three that night. The call lasted four minutes and twelve seconds.’

‘She answered that call, didn’t she?’

Myers nodded.

‘But eleven minutes earlier the answering machine picked it up. Was she out?’

Myers flipped a page. ‘Nope, the building’s concierge said that she arrived at around eight o’clock. He took her suitcases up to the penthouse for her.’ Myers’ fingers returned to her upper lip for an instant. ‘Of course. The towel on the kitchen floor. Katia must’ve been in the shower.’ She quickly checked her notes again. ‘Shit! Remember I told you we have no CCTV footage from the cameras in her building because there was a power surge that blew the fuse box.’

‘Yep.’

‘Well, the cameras went down just before eight.’

Cohen cleared his throat as he leaned forward. ‘And we already know there’s no fucking way that was a coincidence.’

‘That means the kidnapper knew exactly the time she’d be arriving home.’ Myers paused and fought back an uneasy feeling. ‘He was already waiting for her inside her apartment when she got there. That’s why he says welcome home. He knew she was home.’

Cohen’s whole expression changed. ‘So he made that last call from inside her apartment?’

‘It looks that way.’

‘Why? Why make the call if he was already there?’

‘I’m not sure. Fear factor? Sadism? It doesn’t matter.’

Cohen felt every hair on his body stand on end. ‘Oh my God.’

‘What?’

‘The background hissing noise that Gus picked up in the recording. At the studio he told me that it sounded like rain hitting a window far away, or maybe even a strong shower somewhere.’ Cohen’s eyes moved to Myers’. ‘The kidnapper was inside her bedroom when he made that call. He was watching her shower.’