Shattered by Dean Koontz

ago, before this trouble had come along and everyone had gotten nasty with him.
        “Another job?” she asked. “How many jobs have you held these last two years?”
        “Six,” he said.
        “What did you get fired for this time?”
        “I don't know,” Leland said, genuine misery in his voice. “We were putting up an office building-two years of work. I was getting along with everyone. Then my boss, the chief engineer, started in on me.”
        “Started in on you?” she asked, flat and faraway, barely audible above the buzz of the wide tires. “How?”
        He shifted uneasily behind the wheel. “You know, Courtney. Just like all the other times. He talked about me behind my back, set the other men against me. He countermanded my job assignments and encouraged Preston, the steel foreman, to-”
        “He did all this behind your back?” she asked.
        “Yes. He-”
        “If he said all this behind your back, how do you really know he said anything at all?” He could not tolerate the sympathy in her voice, for it was too much like pity. “Did you hear him? You didn't hear him yourself, did you, George?”
        “Don't talk to me like that. Don't try to say it was my imagination.”
        She was quiet, as ordered.
        He looked to see if she was still there. She smiled at him, more solid than she had been a few minutes before.
        He looked at the setting sun, but did not see it. He was now only minimally conscious of the highway ahead. Unsettled by her magical presence, he no longer handled the Chevrolet van as well as he could. It drifted back and forth within the right-hand lane, now and then running onto the gravel shoulder.
        After a while he said, “Did you know that after I called you that day just to ask for a date, after I found you were already three weeks married-I almost went out of my mind? I followed you for a week, day in and day out, just watching you. Did you know? You had said you were flying to Frisco, that this man Doyle and your brother would follow in a week, and you said you didn't think you'd ever come back to Philly again. That nearly killed me, Courtney. Everything was going so badly for me. I remembered how good we had it once… So I called to see if maybe we could get together again. I was going to ask for a date. Did you know that? You didn't, I'll bet. I was all ready to ask for a date… And then I find out you're married and running clear across country.” His voice got hard, cold, almost mean. He paused to collect his thoughts. “You were my good luck-two, three, four years ago. When we were together, everything was fine. Now you're going to be out of touch, out of sight… I knew I had to be near you, Courtney. When I followed you to the airport and saw you leave on that 707, I knew I'd have to follow Doyle and Colin and find out where you were living.”
        She said nothing.
        He drove and talked on, hoping to get a positive reaction from her, no longer perplexed by her sudden appearance. “I had lost my job again. There was nothing to keep me in Philly. Of course, I didn't have money to pay movers like this Doyle did. I had to pack and haul my own things. So I'm driving this clumsy van with its poor air conditioning instead of a fancy Thunderbird. I'm not having a run of luck like this Doyle of yours. People aren't treating me as well as they're treating him. But I knew I had to come out to California anyway, to be near you. To be near you, Courtney…”
        Pretty, quiet, unmoving, she sat there, her slim hands folded in her lap, a nimbus of the day's last light encircling her head.
        “It wasn't easy staying on their trail,” he told her. “I had to be smart. When they were eating breakfast, I realized they must have a marked map in the car, something that would show me which way they were going. I checked.” He gave her a quick glance, grinning, looked at the road again. “I put a wire coat hanger through