Shattered

lulled most of the overnight guests into a quick, deep sleep. The rain chattered noisily into the swimming pool and puddled at the base of the spruce trees and other evergreens which dotted the well-landscaped grounds. It sloshed out of the rain spouting and swirled along curb gutters, and made momentary lakes around drainage grills. The mist reached what the rain could not, heading on sheltered windows and on the slick red enamel of the numbered room doors.
        In Room 318, Alex Doyle sat on the edge of one of the twin beds and listened both to the rain on the roof and to Colin talking on the telephone to Courtney.
        The boy did not mention the stranger in the rented van. The man had not caught up to them again during the long afternoon. And he had no way of knowing where they were spending the night… Even if this game had begun to intrigue him enough to send him out of his way in order to keep it going, he would be discouraged by the bad weather; he would not be searching all the motels along the Interstate in hopes of locating the Thunderbird-not tonight, not in the rain. There was no need to worry Courtney with the details of a danger which had passed and which, Doyle felt now, had never been much of a danger to begin with.
        Colin finished and handed the receiver to Doyle
        “How did you like Kansas?” she asked when he said hello.
        “It was an education,” Doyle said.
        “With Colin as your teacher.”
        “That sums it up.
        “Alex, is anything wrong with him?”
        “Colin?
        “Yes.
        “Nothing's wrong. Why do you ask?”
        She hesitated. The open line hissed softly between them like a subdued echo of the cold rain thundering across the motel roof. “Well… He's not as exuberant as usual.”
        “Even Colin gets tired,” Doyle said, winking at the boy.
        Colin nodded grimly. He knew what his sister was asking and what Alex was trying to avoid telling her. When he had spoken to her, Colin had tried to be natural. But his practiced chatterboxiness had not been able to fully cover over the simmering fear he'd kept on the back burner since the van had appeared early this morning.
        “That's all?” Courtney asked Doyle. “He's just tired?”
        “What else?”
        “Well-”
        “We're both road-weary,” Doyle interrupted. He knew that she sensed more to it than just that. Sometimes she was positively psychic. “It's true that there's a lot to see on a cross-country drive-but most of it is exactly what you saw ten minutes ago, and ten minutes before that.” He changed the subject before she could press for more details. “Any furniture arrive yet?”
        “Oh yes!” she said. “The bedroom suite.”
        “And?
        “Just like it looked in the showroom. And the mattress is firm but full of bounce.”
        He assumed a mock suspicious tone. “How would you know about that - what with your husband halfway across the country?”
        “I jumped up and down on it for about five minutes,” she said, chuckling quietly. “Testing it, you know?”
        He laughed, picturing the slim, longhaired, elfin-faced girl romping happily on their bed as if it were a trampoline.
        “And you know what, Alex?”
        “What?”
        “I was nude when I tested it. How's that strike you?”
        He stopped laughing. “Strikes me fine.” His voice caught in the back of his throat. He felt himself smile idiotically, even though Colin was watching and listening. “Why torture me like this?”
        “Well, I keep thinking you might meet some saucy woman on the highway and run off with her. I don't want you to forget me “I couldn't,” he said, speaking beyond sex now. “I couldn't forget.”
        “Well, I like to be sure. And - hey, I think I found a job.”
        “Already?
        “There's a new city magazine starting up, and they need a photographer to work full time. No tedious layout jobs. Just straight photography. I made an appointment to show them my portfolio tomorrow.”
        “Sounds great.”
        “It'll be good for Colin, too,” she said. “It's not an office job. I'll be running all over the city, setting up shots. That ought to make a pretty full summer for him.”
        They talked only a few minutes more, then said their goodbyes. When he hung up the phone, the drumming rain seemed to get suddenly louder.
        Later, in the intensely dark room as they