The Guilty - Jason Pinter [117]
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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Jason Pinter
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.
The Guilty
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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."
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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