boy tucked in his orange-and-black Phantom of the Opera T-shirt smoothed
the wrinkles out of the phantom’s hideously deformed face, and took a
couple of minutes to comb his thick brown hair until it fell straight to
his shoulders just the way he liked it. Then he sat up straight and
watched the sunscorched landscape whisk past as the mountains drew
nearer.
The electric-blue sky was streaked with narrow bands of gray-white
clouds, but it was no longer a storm sky. Last night’s downpour had
ended as abruptly as it had begun, leaving few traces.
The sandy soil alongside the road looked almost parched, dusty.
The traffic was not heavy this morning, and what there was of it moved
so well and orderly that Doyle did not have to pass a single car all the
way out of the Denver area.
And there was no van behind them.
“You’re awfully quiet this morning,” Alex said after fifteen minutes had
passed in silence. He glanced away from the twisting snakes of hot air
that danced above the highway, looked at the boy.
“You feeling okay?”
“I was thinking.”
“You’re always thinking.”
“I was if thinking about this-maniac.”
“And?
“We aren’t being followed, are we?”
“No.”
Colin nodded. “I bet we never see him again. ” Doyle frowned,
accelerated slightly to keep up with the flow of cars around them.
“How can you be so sure?”
“Just a hunch.”
“I see. I thought you might have a theory “No. Only a hunch.”
“Well,” Doyle said, “I’d feel a whole lot better if you did have some
reasons for thinking we’ve seen the last of him.”
“So would I,” the boy said.
Even as he drove into the parking lot that encircled the Rockies Motor
Hotel, George Leland knew that he had missed them. The headache had
been so damned long and intense . . . And the period of
unconsciousness, afterward, had lasted at least two hours. They might
not be too far out in front of him, but they had surely gotten a head
start.
The Thunderbird was not where it had been the night before. That space
was empty.
He refused to panic. Nothing was lost. They had not escaped. He knew
exactly where they were going.
He parked where the Thunderbird had been, shut off the engine.
There was a map on top of the same tissue box which held the .32-caliber
pistol. Leland unfolded it on the seat and turned sideways to study it,
traced the meager system of highways that crossed Colorado and Utah.
“They don’t have many choices,” he told the golden girl in the seat next
to him.
“Either they stay on the planned route-or they take one of these other
two.”
She said nothing.
“After last night, they’ll change their plans. ” When his headache was
gone, Leland had also lost his selective amnesia. He could now recall
everything: arriving at the motel an hour before they did, watching the
lobby until they arrived, cautiously following them to their room,
coming back in the middle of the night and trying to pick the lock on
their door, the silent chase, and the ax . . . If that damned headache
had only held off for a few minutes ‘ if it had not come on him when it
did, he would have finished off Alex Doyle.
Leland was not disturbed by the realization that he had tried to kill a
man. After suffering so much at the hands of others ‘ he had finally
come to understand that there was only one thing that would destroy this
far-reaching conspiracy that was working against him: force, violence,
counterattack. He must smash this entire evil association which had
been formed solely to drive him to complete despair. And since Alex
Doyle-and the boy, as well formed the keystone of this conspiracy,
murder was quite justified. He had acted in self-defense.
On Monday, when he had caught sight of his own eyes in the mirror, he
had been confused, shocked by what he saw. Now, when he looked in the
mirror, he saw nothing but a reflection, a flat image. After all, he
was only doing what Courtney wanted, so that they could be together