Parker 02 - The Guilty (40 page)

her go, pushed her toward the doorway. She disappeared and

Amanda heard the familiar chime of the elevator call button.

He let her go.

The man was standing in the middle of the room. He was

holding the rifle by his side. She could see no other

movement. William scanned the room, quickly crouched

down to see if anyone was hiding under a desk, then stood

back up.

"Amanda," he said. Her blood ran cold. "Amanda Davies."

It wasn't phrased as a question. He said her name the same

way Henry did when he got home from work. Said it like he

knew she was there and couldn't wait to see her.

"Amanda," he said, holding his arms out wide, the rifle

barrel pointing at the ceiling. "I've been wanting to meet you

for a long time. Don't keep a friend waiting."

She knelt, silent, hoped he would search the other offices,

turn his back so she could make a run for it. Her heart felt like

it was ready to burst through her blouse, she could feel sweat

dripping down her sides.

"Henry and me, we bonded the other day." She heard footsteps, looked up, saw he was moving through the office. "Like

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brothers from different mothers, we might have been. Every

yin needs a yang, every bad penny needs a good one to even

things out. He's my bad penny."

The footsteps grew closer and Amanda dropped back to the

ground. She scuttled behind her desk, crawled underneath and

curled her knees to her chest. She bit her lip to keep it from

trembling. She was too scared to cry.

Roberts moved closer. She heard a squeak as the doorknob

turned. Suddenly she heard a bump come from the other

office, and the knob stopped turning. The footsteps grew

fainter.

Amanda crawled back to the door, looked up just in time

to see Roberts disappear into the conference room.

"Where's Amanda?" she heard him say. There came a

wheezy response from a male voice--she recognized Phil, the

intern. Poor Phil had only been here a week. She hoped he

was making a killer stipend.

Amanda brought her hand up to the doorknob, slowly it

turned until it stopped. Looking up, she saw that the adjacent

office was empty. Slowly she eased the door open just enough

to fit her slim body through. She eased the door shut. The stairwell was less than twenty feet away. She could make it. There

were still noises coming from the other room. Now or never.

She crawled along the wall, keeping her eyes on the other

office where Roberts had entered. Saw William's black shoes

pointing away from the door. She took it a step at a time,

taking deep, slow breaths to slow her heart rate. Twenty feet.

Eighteen. Fifteen. She was past the door, closer to the exit

than Roberts. She slowly stood up. Took one more step.

Peeked around, braced herself, planted her feet to sprint away.

Just as she took her first step, she felt a sharp pain as a hand

gripped her hair and spun her around.

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Her breath caught in her throat as Amanda looked into the

grinning face and wild eyes of William Roberts.

She couldn't fight back. His hand was on her neck. The

Winchester was slung over his neck. And in his other hand

was a knife nearly half a foot long, a streak of glistening red

blood on the blade.

"Miss Davies," he said, his voice metallic and calm. "If

you'll please join me."

"Wh...what do you mean? Where?"

"Somewhere a little, oh, scenic. The last girl, Mya, sad to

say she's probably going to make it." He smiled at her. Then

he said, "Problem is, I didn't drop her from nearly high

enough. That's a mistake that won't happen again."

56

I shared a cab with Jack. My legs were jittery as I kept redialing Amanda's number on my cell phone. It went right to

voice mail every time. I called 911. Tried to figure out what

the hell was going on. I got the feeling from the exasperated

woman on the other end that I wasn't nearly the first to call

it in. I hung up without learning anything.

I called Curt Sheffield, praying there was some sort of

mistake. His voice instantly told me the situation was worse

than I imagined.

"Dude, 911 got about a hundred calls in a three-minute

span," he said, his voice breathless and uneven. "All from

newspapers and television stations. The NYPD has a freaking

battalion on our way down there, but man, they're going to

be a few minutes, the choppers say there's already a few

dozen reporters at the scene. Somehow you guys at the news

desks got wind of this before the cops did. Listen, Carruthers is on the rampage. I'll call you soon as I know anything."

Curt hung up.

"What'd he say?" Jack asked. His voice was scared, his

breath slightly sour.

"Nothing we don't know," I said. "But it seems like the

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news crews got tipped off somehow before the NYPD. There

might be a few reporters down there already."

The cab rounded the corner, arrived at 199 Water Street.

Or at least got as close as it could. Because when we saw the

crowd in front of the building, both of our jaws dropped.

Jack said, "I have a small quibble with your definition of

the word 'few.'"

Surrounding the building's entrance were at least a

hundred reporters and a dozen news vans. They lined the

street like a cattle drive stuck in Neutral.

"What the..." Jack said.

"Hell..." I finished.

Dozens of sports-jacketed journos were in the middle of

writing copy while news correspondents were already being

primped for their on-camera reporting. Cameramen were

pushing and shoving, jockeying for the best lighting to both

hide their stars' blemishes and capture the best angle of the

building behind them. It was an unmitigated madhouse.

And there wasn't a cop in sight.

"This has to be a mistake," Jack said. "I've never seen

anything like this."

"No way," I said. "This is no mistake."

Looking at the building, I could see several confused

people staring out their office windows down at the gathering outside, oblivious to what was going on just a few floors

above or below them. And in the time I took to assess the

situation, three more news vans pulled up, five more nattily

dressed reporters piled out, followed by several burly not-asnattily-dressed cameramen. They all joined the horde and

began applying makeup.

There were no cops anywhere to be seen.

Roberts.

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Jason Pinter

He couldn't have taken the office more than twenty minutes ago. That's when I spoke to Amanda. That's the last I

heard from her.

"Crazy son of a bitch," I said. "Roberts tipped off the press

before
hitting Water Street. Only a sick fuck would call the

press prior to a crime he intended to commit. He called the

press so they'd show up before the cops. He wanted it like this."

"This isn't just one newspaper," Jack said. "I think everyone who's ever held a press badge is here. Informing a

thousand reporters about a hostage situation in New York is

like throwing a slab of rancid meat into an ant farm."

Roberts wanted the press to have the kind of unimpeded

access cops would normally prevent. Right now, the news

crews were free to roam. There was no yellow tape, nobody

holding the crowd back, no gruff detectives or crisis management teams giving inconvenient "no comments."

This was the very definition of a free press.

A reporter wearing a two-thousand-dollar suit and fiberglass hair walked up to the main entrance, cupped his hands

and peered inside. He cocked his head, turned back and

shouted, "Jesus, I think I see someone lying down behind the

security desk. I think I see blood, I think the security guard is

dead." He turned to the cameraman. "You think we should go

inside?"

His cameraman, six-four with a body that looked like it

was fueled at the local Krispy Kreme, carried the camera

over to him. He glared inside.

"Why not? Let me get a light reading, make sure this thing

will transmit."

Suddenly I was sprinting over to the entrance. I shoved fiberglass hair against the side of the building and pressed my

forearm into his chest.

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He struggled, tried to pry my arm away, yelped, "Get the

hell off me!"

"Goddamn it, you don't know who's watching. If you so

much as touch those door handles I'm going to break them

off and strangle you with them."

He could see in my eyes I wasn't kidding. He relaxed. So

did I. He smoothed out his jacket, told the cameraman, "We're

good out here." Then he turned to me. "I had a great spot out

front. If someone steals it I'll have your ass."

"You'll have to try it with broken arms. Look, there's a nice

spot, go set up. Get away from here."

He walked away. Then I turned back to the building. That's

when I heard the first siren. I could see the reflection in the

doorway as half a dozen squad cars pulled up and a phalanx of

uniformed officers filed out. Radios came out as the first cops

to arrive called in reports. They circled the building's entrance.

One cop came closer. I heard him say, "We don't know

what floor they're on."

"Ninth floor," I said.

"And who are you?"

"Henry Parker, I'm with the
Gazette.
My girlfriend is up

there, she works here. Amanda Davies."

The guy waved his arms and another cop came over. This

cop was tall, thin, with a handlebar mustache.

"Captain James O'Hurley."

"Henry Parker."

"You have knowledge of this situation?"

"I just know I was on the phone with my girlfriend, she's

an employee who works on the ninth floor, when I heard a

gunshot. Then the line went dead."

"Who's your girlfriend?"

"Her name is Amanda. Davies."

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Jason Pinter

"Can you think of any reason why Miss Davies or her coworkers would be in danger?"

I took a breath. "William Henry Roberts. He's up there."

O'Hurley's face darkened. I saw a flash of anger in his

eyes. The other cop looked at him.

"That's the guy killed Joe." O'Hurley nodded. "Roberts is

supposed to be the grandson of Billy the Kid or something,

right? Hey, kid," he said, clearly meaning me, "you work at

the
Gazette,
didn't you write some stuff about this guy?"

"Yeah," I said. "I did."

"How much do you know about him?" O'Hurley asked.

I held up my hand, the stitches still embedded in my skin.

The cop whistled.

"Manners aren't his strong suit. Let's say I know Roberts

a lot better than I'd like."

"He did that to you," O'Hurley said, "and that's your girlfriend up there, then..." He paused, realized what was going

on. "Maybe you shouldn't be here."

"You try and drag me away," I said. "And it won't be

pretty."

"Fine," O'Hurley said. "But stay out of the way. If we need

your help we'll ask for it."

"No problem, but Roberts is in there and I know he's going

to hurt Amanda. I
know
it. That's why he came here. That's

why he called the press first. He wants people to see every

second of this.You don't do that kind of thing if you're looking

to steal a few grand and disappear to the Caribbean." I noticed

the rest of the cops were hanging back. "Are you going in?"

"Not yet," O'Hurley said. "We need to assess the situation,

take his demands if there are any, and then figure out a

strategy. Rushing in there might cause panic, stress and force

Roberts's hand."

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347

"This sick bastard killed one of our own," the other cop

added. "He's either spending the rest of his life getting reamed

up the ass in the shower or he's getting a one-way ticket to

the juice chair."

"But what about Amanda?" I asked.

O'Hurley said, "We have no reason to believe she's in immediate danger. If she is the intended target, we have the

hostage negotiation team en route."

"You might be negotiating for a body, Captain."

"Listen, Parker, I can imagine what you're going through.

Trust me, this freak will get what's coming to him. But we

need to minimize collateral damage."

"By collateral damage you mean my girlfriend."

"That's right."

"You think he called the press just so he could try out his

new stand-up routine? He's going to do something terrible,

and if you guys don't do something soon it'll be too late."

"That's enough, Parker." O'Hurley pointed to where

several cops were putting up blue sawhorses, stringing up

yellow tape. "Wait behind the line with the rest of the press."

I watched as the cops herded several reporters behind the

barricade. They put up a fight. They always did. But in the

end they always moved back, docile.

Docile wasn't going to cut it today. Roberts was pure evil.

He wasn't going to wait for the cops to "strategize."