His special place was less than fifteen minutes away. The road swept into the lower fringes of the Mojave Desert, where windblasted rock formations jutted up at unnatural angles amid bleak stretches of pinkish alkaline sand. In the crisp, slanting sunshine the landscape was rendered forebodingly alien and slightly unreal, like a movie fantasist’s vision of the surface of Mars. Rood was fond of the desert. He liked its ugly desolation and arid inhospitality to man, the stony friendlessness of its monuments, the bite of the dusty air. But today he took little interest in the scenery around him. He had something far more interesting to occupy his attention. Leaning back in his seat, he studied the young woman behind the steering wheel as she drove. He really did prefer her hair loose as it was now, not coiled in that dreadful chignon. He loved the innocence of her face, the smooth skin, the china-blue eyes. She was a porcelain doll. His doll. His to play with and fondle and hold. A life-size toy, all for him.
