"The Voice That Killed"

 

𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙁𝙞𝙧𝙨𝙩 𝙎𝙘𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙢

The apartment was dim and quiet except for the faint ticking of a wall clock and the electric hum of a laptop fan. Eli sat hunched on the couch, large headphones pressed tightly over his ears, eyes wide and anxious.

On screen: a live podcast stream. Title: “Late Night Echoes”. A mellow-voiced host was mid-sentence when it happened.

“And when we talk about betrayal, sometimes the sharpest knives come from the people we—”

CRACK!

A thunderous sound cut through — like a distant gunshot followed by a thud and a chaotic scuffle. Then static. Heavy breathing. The host's voice returned, but shaken, almost whispering.

“D-Did… did anyone else hear—?”
Click.
The stream ended.

Eli froze. For a moment, he couldn’t breathe.

Then the door creaked open.

A soft voice, casual as ever:

“I hope you didn’t eat all my biscuits, Eli.”

Zane Faulkner stepped in — sharp suit under an open charcoal coat, scarf lazily slung, a paper bag of tangerines in hand.

Eli yanked off the headphones.

“Z-Zane… someone just got murdered. On a podcast. Live!”

Zane paused mid-step. Raised an eyebrow.

“Well, that's new.”

𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙎𝙞𝙡𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚 𝘽𝙚𝙩𝙬𝙚𝙚𝙣 𝙒𝙤𝙧𝙙𝙨

Within minutes, Zane was sitting beside Eli, laptop pulled close, headphones now on his own head.

He listened.

Paused.

Replayed the moment. Again. Then again.

Then leaned back and tapped his fingers together.

“Interesting. The shot — or sound like it — wasn’t exactly clean. It had a soft bounce. Like it struck something not entirely solid.”

Eli blinked. “It sounded like a gunshot!”

“That’s what you were meant to think.”

Zane stood. He was no longer casual.

He was in motion.

“Get me everything on this podcast. Host name. Guest list. Any previous episodes with the same voice signatures.”

Eli scrambled for his phone. “But what do you think actually happened?”

Zane was already at his chalkboard wall, sketching out timelines.

“I think someone died. And someone else made sure we all heard it — but not as it happened.”

𝙄𝙣𝙩𝙧𝙤𝙙𝙪𝙘𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙑𝙤𝙞𝙘𝙚𝙨

Within the hour, Eli had what Zane needed.

The podcast, Late Night Echoes, was hosted by a rising voice-artist named Aaron Kessler. The episode had three guests:

Mina Roe – A spoken-word poet and former flame of Aaron.

Harley Venn – Audio engineer and part-time co-host.

Caller #42 – An anonymous listener who had appeared several times but never identified.

Zane paced the room like a panther in thought. Then stopped.

“Get them all. I want to talk to each of them — separately.”

Eli sighed. “You want me to call them now?”

“No, Eli. Let’s wait until morning,” Zane said as he slipped back onto the couch with a tangerine.
“Wouldn’t want to scare the killer too early.”

𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙁𝙞𝙧𝙨𝙩 𝙄𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙧𝙤𝙜𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣: 𝘼𝙖𝙧𝙤𝙣 𝙆𝙚𝙨𝙨𝙡𝙚𝙧

The next day, Aaron Kessler arrived at Zane’s request — nervous but composed.

“It just… happened. One minute I was talking, the next — boom — static and chaos. I thought it was a prank. I ended the stream.”

Zane tilted his head. “You heard a gunshot. Then breathing. Then cut the audio. Did you call the police?”

“I… didn’t know what I heard. I panicked.”

Zane leaned forward.

“Who edits your live streams?”

“Harley Venn usually runs the backend. I just talk.”

“You didn’t recognize the scream?”

Aaron hesitated.

“No.”

Zane didn’t blink.

“Then you’re either lying. Or deaf to murder.”

Eli whispered: “Too soon, Zane.”

Zane just smiled faintly.

𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙎𝙚𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙙 𝙋𝙖𝙧𝙩𝙞𝙘𝙞𝙥𝙖𝙣𝙩: 𝙈𝙞𝙣𝙖 𝙍𝙤𝙚

Mina entered with fire in her eyes and ice in her voice.

“If this is about Aaron, I didn’t kill anyone. Not for lack of motive.”

Zane offered her tea. She declined.

“He humiliated me. On air. Repeatedly. But murder? Please.”

“Where were you during the last five minutes of the stream?”

“In my apartment. Live on the call. You heard me, didn’t you?”

Zane’s eyes narrowed.

“We heard someone. Not necessarily you.”

Eli jumped in. “She has a very distinct voice, though—”

Zane raised a finger. “Even voices can lie, Eli. Especially when they’re professionally edited.”

𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝘼𝙪𝙙𝙞𝙤 𝙀𝙣𝙜𝙞𝙣𝙚𝙚𝙧: 𝙃𝙖𝙧𝙡𝙚𝙮 𝙑𝙚𝙣𝙣

Harley was twitchy. He kept checking his phone.

“I just clean the audio, man. Compress levels, EQ it — nothing special.”

“Did you have access to the final stream feed?”

“Technically, yes.”

“And you never heard a pre-recorded file slip into the live mix?”

“Nope.”

Zane paused.

“You’re either sloppy. Or you're trying very hard to look innocent.”

Harley swallowed hard.

Eli leaned in. “You’re making everyone nervous.”

Zane whispered, “Exactly.”

𝙇𝙮𝙧𝙖’𝙨 𝙁𝙞𝙧𝙨𝙩 𝙀𝙣𝙩𝙧𝙮

The door clicked open without a knock.

Lyra stepped in wearing a forest green coat and that impossible expression — annoyed, alert, and beautiful.

“You called. I answered. What’s the emergency, Faulkner?”

Zane grinned.

“I needed a forensic ear. You have the best in town.”

“Flattery won’t speed this up,” she said, placing a small drive on the table.
“Here’s the filtered audio. Background hiss shows inconsistency. A segment was spliced in.”

Zane’s smile widened.

“That’s my girl.”

“I’m not your anything,” she snapped — but her eyes softened for a second.

Eli awkwardly sipped tea. “Should I… leave?”

No one answered him.

𝙎𝙝𝙖𝙙𝙤𝙬𝙨 𝙤𝙛 𝘿𝙤𝙪𝙗𝙩

Back at the board, Zane pointed at the waveform Lyra had extracted.

“This section. These five seconds. That’s not live. That’s inserted.”

Eli squinted. “So the murder didn’t happen during the podcast?”

“It happened before. And the killer timed the stream to make it feel live.”

“Why?”

“Because if everyone hears a murder live… they assume it just happened. That buys the killer time.”

Zane’s voice dropped.

“And buries the truth in noise.”

𝙏𝙬𝙞𝙨𝙩: 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙈𝙪𝙧𝙙𝙚𝙧 𝙒𝙖𝙨𝙣’𝙩 𝙇𝙞𝙫𝙚

Zane returned to Aaron’s interrogation and replayed a simple question.

“At what exact minute did you feel something was wrong?”

Aaron looked confused.

“I don't know… around the 40-minute mark?”

Zane tapped the board.

“That’s interesting. Because Caller #42 spoke at 38 minutes. And the scream came seconds after. But your voice—”
Zane turned up the waveform —
“—never registered panic. Not until 44 minutes in.”

Eli whispered, “So the scream wasn’t live?”

Zane’s smile sharpened.

“The scream was real. Just… pre-recorded.”

Zaroor. Yahaan hai “Zane Faulkner and The Voice That Killed – Part 2” ke final 1500 words — jahan story complex interrogation, shocking deduction aur iconic killer reveal ke saath apne peak par pohanchti hai.

𝙍𝙚𝙛𝙧𝙖𝙢𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙏𝙞𝙢𝙚𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙚

Zane sat in front of a massive digital screen where the audio timeline blinked softly in dim light. On it: color-coded segments — red for live voices, yellow for ambient noise, and one patch of unsettling green.

He pointed at it.

“This five-second segment — it’s been inserted. Harley didn’t notice it because the room tone was artificially looped. But Lyra caught the echo inconsistency.”

Lyra, leaning against the window, raised a brow. “Told you your ears weren’t enough.”

Zane gave her a faint grin.

“That’s why I brought backup.”

Eli nervously hovered over a whiteboard now covered in scribbled notes.

“So who died? And when? And where?”

Zane spoke slowly, deliberately:

“The victim is Joel Maynard. A private investigator who once exposed a bribery ring Aaron Kessler was allegedly part of.”

Eli blinked. “He wasn’t on the podcast.”

“Exactly,” Zane said. “But his death was.”

𝘾𝙤𝙣𝙛𝙧𝙤𝙣𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝘾𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙚𝙧

They called back Caller #42 — voice masked again.

Zane had rigged an auto-decoder. As the caller spoke, a waveform analysis ran in real-time.

“What do you want now?” the voice buzzed.

Zane answered:

“You spoke as if you saw the murder. But your words were too rehearsed. You weren’t reacting. You were reading.”

The waveform shifted.

“I don’t know what you’re implying.”

Zane gestured, and Lyra hit a key.

The voice dropped.

It was Harley Venn’s voice.

Eli gasped. “So he was the fake caller?!”

Zane’s expression didn’t change.

“Harley recorded that too. It was all planned. He built a podcast where the murder appeared live — but it was all a setup.”

“But,” Lyra said softly, “he wasn’t smart enough to do it alone.”

Zane nodded.

“Exactly. That’s why I said — there’s someone else. Someone everyone heard... but no one listened to.”

𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙁𝙖𝙠𝙚 𝘼𝙡𝙞𝙗𝙞

Mina Roe returned to the apartment, this time summoned by Zane.

He showed her the waveform from her “live” voice.

“See this? The inflection on the word ‘betrayal’. You used that same emphasis — same exact pause — in an older episode five months ago.”

Mina stared.

Zane leaned closer.

“You weren’t live. Your voice was stitched in. That’s how you had an alibi... that wasn’t yours.”

She didn’t deny it. Just whispered:

“You really don’t miss a single beat, do you?”

“No,” Zane said. “Not when someone’s life is the cost of the silence.”

𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙎𝙚𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙙 𝙀𝙣𝙩𝙧𝙮 𝙤𝙛 𝙇𝙮𝙧𝙖

Later that evening, Lyra returned with a small envelope. She dropped it on the desk.

“CCTV footage from the building where the podcast was recorded. The time of death was estimated at 8:14 p.m.”

Eli narrowed his eyes. “But the live stream started at 8:30.”

“Exactly,” Lyra said. “Joel Maynard was already dead before the first word went on air.”

Zane’s fingers tapped the table, then pointed.

“Which means the only reason someone broadcast his murder... was to send a message.”

Eli swallowed. “To whom?”

Zane looked at the board again.

“To us.”

𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙁𝙞𝙣𝙖𝙡 𝙂𝙖𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜

The room was dark except for a spotlight above the round table. Zane stood at its center.

Surrounding him: Aaron, Mina, Harley, a few technicians from the studio, and Lyra and Eli silently watching from the corner.

Zane’s voice rang clear.

“Let’s begin with what we thought we knew…”

He walked around the table slowly.

“A man screamed on a podcast. Listeners heard the gunshot. The host panicked. Everyone assumed the murder happened live.”

He paused beside Aaron.

“But nothing was live. The entire show was a performance. The killer orchestrated every second.”

He gestured to the board.

“The scream was recorded earlier. Inserted with perfect timing. Caller #42? A fake identity. Voice-cloned. Even Mina’s voice — pulled from old episodes.”

Eli leaned to Lyra. “He’s doing the thing again.”

She smirked. “Let him. It’s how he wins.”

Zane’s voice sharpened.

“The killer... staged a murder in plain hearing. He wanted us to believe it was sudden. Spontaneous. But it was theatre.”

He walked slowly.

“The killer... silenced a man who knew too much.”

“The killer... made sure the stream was chaotic enough to confuse forensic timestamps.”

“The killer... was in the room, watching, timing, adjusting audio... while the world listened.”

Now his tone turned deadly.

“And the killer... made one mistake. One small, almost invisible mistake — during the part when no one was supposed to notice anything.”

𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙎𝙞𝙡𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚

There was total quiet.

Eli felt his pulse racing.

Everyone waited for a name.

But Zane never gave it.

He just said,

“And that’s how the killer almost got away with it.”

𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙍𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙖𝙡

People began whispering. Confused. But afraid to speak.

And then Zane turned to face the room fully.

His voice cold. Precise.

“The killer… was Aaron Kessler.”

Gasps.

Aaron’s face went pale.

“W-what?! I… I was hosting!”

Zane nodded.

“Exactly. You controlled the mic, the stream, the pace. And you cut the audio at exactly the right second.”

“But you forgot one thing. Your voice betrayed you.”

“When Eli and I were reviewing the stream, during our casual banter... you laughed. Just once. Softly. It was the same laugh that appeared in the murder segment. Word for word.”

“You spliced in old audio of yourself. But voices evolve — breath rhythm, tone, speed. Yours shifted. And I caught it.”

Aaron backed away.

The others stared, frozen.

Lyra pulled out handcuffs.

“He’s not going anywhere.”

𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙁𝙞𝙣𝙖𝙡 𝙒𝙖𝙡𝙠

Outside, rain tapped gently on the pavement. Zane walked with his hands in his coat pockets. Eli followed close behind, still stunned.

“Zane… when did you really figure it out?”

Zane gave his signature half-smile.

“When we were arguing about tea biscuits... and Aaron laughed.”

Eli blinked. “Wait — what?! That’s when you knew?!”

Zane turned slightly.

“A killer can control the room. The script. The timing. But in a moment of real emotion — like laughing at your ridiculous tea preferences — they slip.”

Eli stopped walking.

And then it hit him.

He remembered the laugh.
He remembered how familiar it had sounded — at the exact moment Zane cracked a joke.

His eyes widened. “Oh my God… You caught him just because…”

Zane smiled faintly, eyes on the horizon.

“Sometimes, the truth hides in the noise. But I always listen.”

FADE OUT.