Shattered Read Free Page A

anger.
        “If you hadn't come along, I wouldn't have gotten a plane ride to Boston,” Colin admitted. “I wouldn't get to go to California either. But… I don't know.”
        “You're too much,” Doyle said, ruffling the boy's hair with one hand.
        Sighing loudly, as if he needed the patience of job in order to get along with Doyle, the boy smoothed his mussed hair with a comb he kept in his hip pocket. He put the comb away, straightened his King Kong T-shirt. “Well, I'll have to think about it. I'm just not sure yet.”
        
        The engine was silent. The tires made almost no noise on the well-surfaced roadbed.
        Five minutes slipped by without awkwardness; they were comfortable enough with each other to endure silence. However, Colin grew restless and began to tap wildly elaborate rhythms on his bony knees.
        “You want to find something on the radio?” Alex asked.
        “I'll have to unbuckle my seatbelt.”
        “OK. But just for a minute or two.”
        The boy relished the slithering retreat of the cloth belt. In an instant he was on his knees on the seat, turned and looking out the car window. “He's still behind us!”
        “Hey!” Alex said. “You're supposed to be finding a radio station.”
        Colin turned and sat down. “Well, you'd have thought I was slipping if I didn't try .” His grin was irresistible.
        “Get some music on that thing,” Alex said.
        Colin fiddled with the am-fm radio until he located a rock-and-roll show. He set the volume, then suddenly popped up on his knees and looked out the rear window. “Staying right on our tail,” he said. Then he dropped into his seat and grabbed for his belt.
        “You're a real troublemaker, aren't you?” Alex asked.
        “Don't worry about me,” the boy said. “We have to worry about that guy following us.”
        
        At eight-fifteen they stopped at a Howard Johnson's restaurant outside of Harrisburg. The moment Alex slotted the car into a parking space in front of the orange-roofed building, Colin was looking for the van. “He's here. Like I expected.”
        Alex looked out his side window and saw the van pass in front of the restaurant, heading for the service station at the other end. On the side of the white Chevrolet, brilliant blue and green letters read: Automover. One-Way Move-It-Yourself Convenience! Then the van was out of sight.
        “Come on,” Alex said. “Let's get some breakfast. “
        “Yeah,” Colin said. “I wonder if he'll have the nerve to walk in after us?”
        “He's just here to get gas. By the time we come out, he'll be fifty miles down the turnpike.
        “When they came outside again nearly an hour later, the parking spaces in front of the restaurant were all occupied. A new Cadillac ' two ageless Volkswagens, a gleaming red Triumph sports car, a battered and muddy old Buick, their own black Thunderbird, and a dozen other vehicles nosed into the curb like several species of animals sharing a trough. The rented van was nowhere in sight.
        “He must have phoned his superiors while we were eating-and discovered he was following the wrong people,” Alex said.
        Colin frowned. He jammed his hands into his dungaree pockets, looked up and down the row of cars as if he thought the Chevrolet were really there in some clever new disguise. Now he would have to make up a whole new game.
        Which was just as well, so far as Doyle was concerned. It was not likely that even Colin could devise two games with built-in excuses for his popping out of his seatbelt every fifteen minutes.
        They walked slowly back to the car, Doyle savoring the crisp morning air, Colin squinting at the parking lot and hoping for a glimpse of the van.
        Just as they were to the car, the boy said, “I'll bet he's parked around the side of the restaurant.” Before Doyle could forbid him, Colin jumped back onto the sidewalk and