On the High Road to Oblivion

Epilogue — The Message

Dodge cut the engine immediately, and for a moment just sat there, grateful to be alive. He watched as first Nora, and then Hurricane, squirmed out of the front seat, and then leaned over the edge of the cockpit. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t my best landing.”

Hurricane chuckled. “Dodge, I’ve flown with you a time or two, and I can testify that it was by no means your worst.”

The big man’s humor was contagious. Dodge was still laughing as he climbed down from the wreck. Somehow, Nora found her way into his arms, and it felt like the most natural thing in the world.

“Not bad,” she said, gazing up him with something more than admiration. “And thus ends another chapter of the Real Adventures of Dodge Dalton.”

He laughed again at that. “Too bad Rod wasn’t around for most of it.”

She winced guiltily. “I have a little confession to make. Rodney doesn’t write those stories. I do.”

His initial disbelief passed quickly.

“They said no one would read adventure stories if they knew a woman wrote them,” she explained.

“I would read them,” he promised, and pulled her close once more. “But if you’re going to write this story, we need to give it a proper ending.”

“You don’t think this is good enough?”

“It’s missing something.” He gently tilted her head up until their eyes met, and when he kissed her, he could that she had been waiting for him to do it for a long time.

“Ah, Dodge?”

He grudgingly pulled away from her. “Hurricane, you really know how to ruin—”

The words caught in Dodge’s throat as he followed his friend’s gaze to the edge of the crowd.

“Molly?”

Though surrounded by scores of people, Molly Rose Shannon, dressed in a bright green Indian sari, with a heavy travel bag slung over one bare shoulder, seemed somehow to be standing alone. There was hurt in her eyes as she stared back at him, but she blinked it away and started toward him.

“Sorry to just show up like this,” she said, her voice tight with emotion. “But I had to come. I’ve got a message from dad.”

“The Padre is back?” Hurricane said.

Molly shook her head. “I dreamed about him. The same dream, night after night. He told me to find you, to give you a message:

“‘The time is near. You must be ready. The prisoner has returned. He will destroy everything.’”