The Guilty - Jason Pinter [105]
women. Pastor Rheingold was frozen in time, right about to
wrap his suited arms around her. A big smile played on his face.
The caption read: An exhausted yet emboldened Pastor
Mark Rheingold greets worshippers during his return to Texas.
The woman in the photo was Meryl Roberts.
That look in her eyes was not of an adoring fan, or heavenobsessed parishioner. It was the same look I saw at the airport,
when husbands returned to their wives. When lovers reunited.
When dormant embers were rekindled.
John Roberts was standing next to his wife in the photo.
A smile was on his face. A smile that knew more than he was
willing to tell.
And in the background, over both of their shoulders, was
the face of the man who had killed four people, cut up my
hand and thrown my former lover off a rooftop. It was the face
of William Henry Roberts.
He was staring at Mark Rheingold. I recognized the
burning in his eyes as the same expression he had right before
pushing Mya off a building. That he'd enjoy the violence
about to take place.
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William Henry Roberts lay in bed, naked excerpt for a pair
of loose-fitting shorts. The window was open, his skin dry
from the cool summer air. He could hear sirens like crazed
bees flying down the New York streets, looking to quench
fires that could only be put out briefly before igniting again.
They were looking for the source of these flames, and so far
they'd come up empty.
William read the papers. He knew they were looking for
a ghost. He could be anybody. Someone's friend. Someone's
brother. Someone's son.
In one life he had been all of these.
He could sense the panic in the streets as men and women
tried to figure out who might be next. They promised to keep
their children locked up, to come home early from work. That
made him laugh. He wasn't targeting normal moms and pops.
All of his victims shared the same bond, and once he'd taken
out as many as possible, in the end they would all thank him.
Some called him heartless.
Cold.
Evil.
A demon.
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Jason Pinter
The devil himself.
Others called him a warrior.
A prophet.
An apostle.
One said that God worked in mysterious ways.
One referred to his beloved Winchester as the weapon
with which God was raining brimstone down upon the city
of sin. That only through darkness and devastation could light
eventually emerge.
William Henry Roberts read all of these, and knew that
with the right fire the whole city could burn. Just like the fire
that had lit up the Texas sky years ago.
It took a fire to clean William and awaken him. It would
take a fire for this city to see the light.
Just like his great-grandfather had done all those years
ago, riding with fearless men who tried to right the wrongs
of so many evils only to find backs turned, his very motives
questioned, an army amassing against his fellow Regulators.
He was forced into hiding to save his life. He had to live
a lie, denying his heritage until he was nearly on his deathbed.
Bonney was a great name. Billy the Kid was the mythological name bestowed upon him. William's parents had tried
to hide that legacy from him. Better for them to die than to
bury the legend, stem the blood.
The heiress and the mogul were all targeted from the beginning. The cop was a mistake, but a fortunate one. David
Loverne was a split-second decision. After reading Mya's
interview in the Dispatch, it was an easy choice.
Mya, though, was another story.
She had to go because of Henry.
William Roberts was a Regulator. Some thought him a
villain, others a savior. Whichever side of the coin he was on,
The Guilty
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Henry Parker was on the other, the one chosen by fate to
chronicle William's myth. Parker was a young man, just a few
years older than Roberts's twenty-one. Henry himself had
been hunted, narrowly escaping death.
We're the same.
Even if Henry didn't understand what William was trying
to accomplish, he would be the one to spread the gospel.
Patrick Floyd Garrett didn't agree with Billy the