Jason Pinter - The Guilty

She was lying on the floor of some dingy hotel room. The bed was unmade. Ugly orange curtains dangled above her.

The rusty air conditioner rattled, spewing a warm breeze.

Under the bed she could see a small blue duffel bag, underwear and socks spilling out of it.

By the foot of the bed, Mya saw what appeared to be a gun. Not like the kind she saw in the movies. This one was long. The barrel seemed to have some kind of wood finish.

The boy noticed her staring and said, agreeing, "She's a true thing of beauty."

Mya tried to squirm but it was no use. Her energy was gone. And a blade was ticking her ribs. If she bucked in the wrong direction, it could…

"How you feeling?" he asked. Mya blinked. What was his name? He'd told it to her at the bar. Where he'd been charming, funny, handsome and sweet. Of course all of this was before he kidnapped her. "Nod once for okay, nod twice for not okay."

Mya nodded twice, vigorously. She remembered his hands on her, her whole body tingling, feeling alive. She remembered his hands, strong and gentle, but then all of a sudden perfunctory, like they were only waiting to…

And here she was.

"You're not getting me, Miss Loverne. Nod once if you're okay, as in not hurt. Nod twice if you are hurt. Forget about your hands. Can you walk?" Mya felt the blade dig in. She tried to cry out, but the tape prevented her from emitting anything but a pathetic whimper. She felt saliva coating the tape sealing her mouth.

She nodded once. That was all.

"You had me worried," the boy said with a grin.

William. His name was William.

"We have a busy night ahead of us," William said. "Are you up for it?"

Her first instinct was to try and scream. Or at least nod twice. But the knife made its horrible presence felt once again and she tilted her chin down once. A single tear streaked down Mya's cheek. The boy wiped it away.

After leaving the office, I called Amanda. We hadn't spoken the whole day, mainly because I'd been swamped with Justice

Waverly, then presenting the information to Wallace, Evelyn and Jack. Then I began to prep the outline of a blockbuster story that would both force the reopening of the fire in Hico, but present new information proving that Billy the Kid had lived long after his alleged murder. It was too soon to claim that Athena Paradis's killer was Billy's great-grandson, or that

I thought he was. I knew it was true, but had to be able to convince others. Truth required proof, however, and since he was still at large the only proof was four silent corpses.

One thing was for certain, and Waverly had confirmed it, that William Henry Roberts was not among the victims who died in the fire.

So if William did not die in that fire, why was there no investigation into his whereabouts? Hamilton County police department came up empty, and they moved mighty quick to assume the body had simply "burnt up." Even I didn't think they would be that careless. At least not by accident.

Not a single newspaper report asked questions about the fire. They were too busy bemoaning the death of Mark Rheingold and four, less important, members of the Hico community. Everyone seemed more than happy to wash away any unpleasant memories and get on with their lives.

That brought up another question. What was Pastor Mark

Rheingold-a statewide institution, a man who made millions of dollars a year and had thousands of rabid followers-doing at the Roberts house the night of the fire? I searched every archive available but couldn't find anything linking Rheingold to the Roberts family. It was a pretty big coincidence that

Rheingold paid a house call the night a four-alarm blaze

Pinter, Jason – Henry Parker 02

The Guilty (2008) burned everything to the ground.

I dialed Amanda's line at work. It went right to voice mail.

"Hey, babe, it's me, I'm heading home now. You're probably still at work, just wanted to know if we should plan to have dinner together. Anyway, give me a call back. Love you."

Click.

I needed a night to relax, unwind. Everything this past week had come so suddenly. All those deaths-deaths of people I knew. The NYPD was beside themselves at this point, and the newspapers hadn't pulled punches in their criticism. And though New York had arguably the finest police department in the country, it was also a city in which it was all too easy to disappear. I knew that firsthand. Sooner or later the net would close in on Roberts. We could only hope it did before that Winchester fired again.

The Gazette' s sales had gone through the roof the last few days. The city hadn't seen such juicy copy in a long time, and people were buying up papers in droves. Between Athena

Paradis's murder, the turmoil at Franklin-Rees after Jeffrey

Lourdes's death, the NYPD wanting blood for Joe Mauser, and the societal fallout from David Loverne's murder, it was a gold mine for newshounds.

Joe Mauser's death had been relegated to the back pages.

A cop dying in the line of duty just didn't sell as many papers as a murdered pretty blond white girl. It was strange that this pissed me off so much, considering Joe Mauser's bullet had left a nasty scar on my leg. Just one year ago, Mauser wanted to kill me. I held no ill will toward the man. If someone had done to my family what he thought I'd done to his, I would have wanted blood, as well.

I got off the subway and began walking toward our apartment. The summer sun was dipping below the clouds, the shimmering towers of NewYork fading into night. The streets began to fill as people straggled home from work. Finally, after over a year I felt I was becoming a part of this city. It hadn't been easy, thanks to assholes like Frank Rourke. Since the dog crap prank, my desk had been left alone. I had gone along with it, laughed it up, threw it in the trash and left it at that. If you let guys like Frank know they'd drawn blood, they'd grow addicted to the taste. I could bleed on my own time.

I approached the apartment building and fished in my pocket for the key. I wondered if we should move to a safer neighborhood, live in a building with a doorman. Now that

Amanda was living with me I wasn't completely comfortable with her walking home alone, especially since most days she came home later than I did. I had to take care of the woman

I loved. Put her needs before mine. I was determined to prove

Jack wrong. I could balance work and relationships. I didn't have to give in just because he did. Jack was a legend, but an old school legend. I was strong. I could make it work.

As I turned the key in the lock, a voice broke the night and froze my blood. I recognized that voice, only now it was louder, angrier.

I heard it again, turned around. Saw several pedestrians staring up, up at the rooftops, their mouths open in masks of horror. A man dialed his cell phone frantically. A woman grabbed her son and ran.

Then I heard it again.

"Henry Parker!"

High above us, perched atop a four-story brownstone, illuminated by the moonlight, was William Henry Roberts.

One hand was empty. The other held a knife. The knife was held to Mya Loverne's throat.

"Mya!" I shouted. Her eyes were frightened beyond rational thought. Some sort of towel or cloth was in her mouth. I ran forward, then stopped.

"Parker!" Roberts cried again.

"Leave her alone!" I shouted, unsure of what else to do. I wasn't close enough to get to them. No cops were in sight.

Fucking Carruthers had pulled off my security detail, and now…

I called you, Henry.

Mya.

"This," Roberts said, his voice a mixture of pathos and breathless glee, like a man taking perverse excitement in reprimanding a dog. "This is what happens. I control information, not you, Parker. I give you history to write about. So consider this a present, Henry. From me to you."