Shattered

openly.
        The stranger was no longer over there on the ground-floor walkway where he had been when Doyle had last seen him. Indeed, he seemed to have vanished into thin air.
        Doyle looked at the pines and shrubs from this new prospective, and he realized that the stranger might have doubled back to wait for him. The feathery shadows were menacing, far too deep and too dangerous…
        Taking advantage of the yellow and green lights that surrounded the swimming pool and avoiding the shadows, Doyle crossed the courtyard without incident. However, he had no sooner gotten out of the worst of the wind and rain than he heard footsteps again. This time they were at the back of the complex, to the north, going up to the second level on this wing. He followed the hauntingly hollow thump-thump-thump which was barely audible above the rain sounds.
        The stairwell was deserted when he got to it, a straight flight of wet and mottled gray-brown risers.
        He stood at the bottom for a minute, looking up, thinking. He was quite aware of the easy target that he would make when he came out at the top, all too vulnerable to a gun or knife or even to a quick shove that would carry him back down the way he had come.
        Nevertheless, he started up, more than a little bit exhilarated and surprised at his own daring in having come even this far. Tonight he had begun to discover a new Alex Doyle inside the old one. There was a Doyle who could overcome the cowardliness when faced with a responsibility for the well-being of those he loved, when more than his own pride was affected.
        He was not set upon when he came off the last step and into the northwest corner of the courtyard overlook. There was no one waiting for him. He was greeted by lightless windows, concrete, and red doors.
        Again he experienced the strange feeling that he was the last man alive in the motel indeed, that he was the last man in the world. He did not know if the fantasy was based on megalomania or paranoia, but the sense of isolation was complete.
        Then Alex saw the stranger again. Shapeless, shadow-swathed, mist-draped, the man stood at the extreme north end of the promenade, at the head of the stairs which went down to the parking lot behind the motel Complex. Another blue safety bulb behind another wire cage did nothing to illuminate the phantom. He took the first step, seemed to turn and look back at Doyle, took the second step, then the third, disappeared once more.
        It's almost as if he wants me to follow him, Alex thought.
        He went north along the promenade and down the rain-washed steps.
        

    Twelve
        
        Four mercury-vapour arc lamps towered over the parking area behind the Rockies Motor Hotel, making the night above them twice as dark as it was elsewhere, but somewhat illuminating the rows of cars beneath. The irritating, fuzzy purple light glinted dully in the falling raindrops and in the water that flushed across the black macadam. It made stark shadows. It leeched the color out of everything it touched, transforming the once-bright cars into depressing, green-brown look-alikes.
        Doyle, tinted a light purple himself, stood on the walk at the bottom of the stairwell and looked left and right along the lot.
        The stranger was nowhere in sight.
        Of course, the man might be hidden between two of the cars, crouched expectantly… But if the chase were to degenerate into a game of hide-and-seek in a playground of two or three hundred automobiles, they could waste all night darting around the silent machines and in and out of the shadows between them.
        He supposed he had come to the end of it now; there was nothing to be gained by this expedition, after all. He was not going to get a look at the man or at the rented Automover. He would have no description or license number to work with or to give to the police - if it came to that. Therefore, he might as well go back to the room, get out of these wet clothes, towel off, and…
        But he could not walk away from the challenge quite as easily as that. if he were not exactly drunk with courage, he was at least somewhat inebriated with his own appreciation for his new-found bravery. This brand-new Alex Doyle, this suddenly responsible Doyle, this Doyle who was capable of coping with and perhaps even overcoming his long-held fear, fascinated and pleased him immensely. He wanted to see just