Shattered

on the road again, Doyle and the kid were miles to the rear, out of sight. Leland did not like that at all.
        He let his speed drop even further. As he began to realize that now they were following him , his ever-present fear took on a familiar edge. The gray road seemed like a tunnel now, a trap with one exit and no way to turn back.
        Then ahead, another rest area loomed on the right, shielded from the highway by a double row of pines. Leland braked and drove in there, went up a slight incline. He parked on the square graveled plateau, facing the highway so that he could watch the traffic between the thick brown trunks of the trees.
        All he had to do now was wait and watch the road. When the Thunderbird passed, he could fall in behind it, catch up to it in two or three minutes. He was enormously relieved.
        
        The trooper was getting out of the patrol car even before George Leland realized that he had driven into the rest area. Leland had been watching the highway beyond the pines for a full five minutes, and he must have been somewhat mesmerized by the bright sunshine and the spurts of westbound traffic. One moment he thought he was alone-and the next moment he was aware of the Ohio State Police patrol car angled in beside the van. Half in the shadows cast by the pines and half in the slanting sunlight, it looked unreal. The dome light was flashing, though the siren had not been used. The trooper who got out was in his early thirties, sober and hard-jawed. He was the same man who had been taking his lunch in Breen's, the one who had called to Leland outside the little diner.
        Leland remembered some of the reasons for his previous panic. Again the world appeared to close in on him. Darkness crept up at the corners of his vision, inward-spreading ink stains. He felt bottled up and vulnerable, an easy target for those who meant him harm. These days everyone seemed to be after him. He was always running.
        He rolled down his window as the cop approached.
        “You alone?” the lieutenant asked, stopping far enough from the van to be out of the way of the door if Leland should suddenly swing it open. He had one hand on the butt of his holstered revolver.
        “Alone?” Leland asked. Yes, sir. “Why didn't you stop when I called to you?”
        “Called to me?”
        “At the restaurant,” the lieutenant said, his voice crisp and older than his smooth face.
        Leland looked perplexed. “I didn't see you. You called me?”
        “Twice.”
        “I'm sorry,” Leland said. “I didn't hear.” He frowned. “Did I do something wrong? I'm usually a careful driver.”
        The trooper watched him carefully for a moment, searched his blue eyes, took in his sun-darkened face and neatly trimmed hair, then relaxed. He let his hand drop from the gun. He took the last few steps to the van. “It wasn't your driving,” he said. “Just the same, I'd like to have a look at your license and the rental papers for the truck.”
        “Sure,” Leland said. “Always glad to cooperate.” Moving as if he were reaching for his wallet, he took the.32-caliber pistol out of the tissue box on the seat beside him. In one fluid movement he raised it to the window and centered the barrel on the trooper's face and pulled the trigger. The single shot echoed in the copse of pines behind the van and slapped sharply across the highway out front.
        
        Leland sat and watched the traffic on the throughway for several minutes before he realized that he ought to conceal the corpse. Any minute someone could pull into the rest area, see the cop sprawled between the patrol car and the van, and run for help. These days everyone was on his tail. He had stayed alive this long only by keeping one step ahead of them. Now was no time to let his thinking get fuzzy.
        He pushed open the van door and got out.
        The trooper was lying face down in the gravel, dark blood pooled around his head. He looked much smaller now, almost like a child.
        During the past year, when he sensed the conspiracy working against him, Leland had wondered whether he would be able to kill to protect himself. He knew it would come to that. Kill or be killed. And until this moment he had not been sure which it would be. Now he could not understand why he had ever been in doubt. When it was kill or be killed, even a non-violent man could act to save