Shattered

unemotionally and identically: with reluctance and perhaps apathy?
        It was not a nice thought.
        Shaking violently now, he tried to stop thinking about it as he pushed away from the rail and walked down the rain-washed promenade toward their room.
        

    Fourteen
        
        When Doyle finished drying his hair, Colin folded the white motel towel and carried it into the bathroom, where he draped it over the shower rail with the rain-soaked clothes. Trying to handle himself in a calm and dignified manner - even though he was wearing only undershorts and eyeglasses, and even though he was obviously quite frightened - the boy came back into the main room and sat down in the middle of his own bed. He stared openly at Doyle's bruised right side.
        Alex cautiously explored the tender flesh with the tips of his fingers, until he was satisfied that nothing was broken or so seriously damaged that it demanded a doctor's attention.
        “Hurt?” Colin asked.
        “Like a bitch.”
        “Maybe we should get some ice to put on it.”
        “It's just a bruise. Not much to be done.”
        “You think it's just a bruise,” Colin said.
        “The worst of the pain is gone already. I'll be stiff and sore for a few days, but there isn't any way to avoid that.”
        “What do we do now?”
        Doyle had, of course, told the boy everything about the ax battle and the tall, gaunt man with the wild eyes. He had known that Colin would recognize a lie and would probe for the truth until he got it. This was not a child whom you could treat like a child.
        Doyle stopped massaging his discolored flesh and considered the boy's question. “Well… We definitely have to change the route we'd planned on taking from here to Salt Lake City. Instead of using Route 40, we'll take either Interstate 80 or Route 24 and-”
        “We changed plans before,” Colin said, blinking owlishly behind his thick, round glasses. “And it didn't work. He picked us up again. ”
        “He picked us up again only when we returned to I-70, the road that he was using,” Doyle said. “This time we won't go back to the main roads at all. We'll take the longer way around. We'll figure a new way into Reno from Salt Lake City -then a secondary road from Reno to San Francisco.”
        Colin thought about that for a minute. “Maybe we should stay at new motels, too. Pick them at random.”
        “We have reservations and deposits waiting for us,” Doyle said.
        “That's what I mean.” The boy was somber.
        “That sounds like paranoia,” Doyle said, surprised.
        “I guess.”
        Doyle sat up straighter against the headboard. “You think that this character knows where we intend to stop each night?”
        “He keeps picking us up in the mornings,” the boy said defensively.
        “But how would he know our plans?”
        Colin shrugged.
        “He would have to be somebody we know,” Doyle said, not warming to the idea at all, afraid to warm to it. “I don't know him. Do you?”
        Colin just shrugged again.
        “I've already described him,” Doyle said. “A big man. Light, almost white hair, cut short. Blue eyes. Handsome. A little gaunt… Does he sound like somebody you know?”
        “I can't tell from a description like that,” Colin said.
        “Exactly. He's like ten million guys. So we'll operate under the assumption that he is a total stranger, that he's just your average American madman, the kind you read about in the newspapers every day.”
        “He was waiting for us in Philly.”
        “Not waiting . He happened to-”
        “He started out with us,” Colin said. “He was right there behind us from the first.”
        Doyle did not want to consider that the man might know them, might have some real or imagined grudge against them. If that were the case, this whole crazy thing would not end with the trip. If this maniac knew them, he could pick them up again in San Francisco. He could come after them any time he wanted. “He's a stranger,” Alex insisted. “He's nuts. I saw him in action. I saw his eyes. He is not the sort of man who could plan and execute a cross-country pursuit.”
        Colin said nothing.
        “And why would he pursue us? If he wants us dead-why not kill us back in Philly? Or out on the coast? Why chase us this way?”
        “I don't know,” the boy admitted.
        “Look, you have