Shadow of a Life

by Tifani Clark

CHAPTER 25

  Morning came with a vengeance the next day. The sun had returned and mocked us with its presence. I would have preferred to go to sleep and not wake up for a month. After Nick and Sophia had extricated the night before, Peter and I gathered their things and went in search of their rental car. We found it parked at the fork in the road at the spot where Peter and I had climbed through the barbed wire fence hours earlier.

  We found the car keys in the pocket of Nick’s jeans and Peter insisted he could drive. I climbed into the passenger seat. That was the least crazy thing we’d done all night.

  We drove back to Newport News and into the parking garage of our hotel in silence. Everything we did seemed to be done in a blur. I didn’t want to explain everything to Camille. All I wanted to do was take a bath and pull the covers over my head, but Camille met us at the door, gasping in shock when she saw the way we looked.

  “What happened to you? Where’s Nick and Sophia?” she said.

  I still couldn’t speak so I just walked past her and closed the bathroom door behind me, stripping down to nothing and climbing into the tub before it was even full. I sunk down into the water with nothing but my mouth and nose showing. When I finally emerged an hour later, Camille was sitting on the floor outside the bathroom door, holding my pajamas for me.

  “Peter told me what happened.”

  I took one look at her and tears started streaming again. The two of us sat in the hall and cried for a long time. Peter had gone back to the other hotel room by then and it was just the two of us. Eventually I crawled into bed and stayed there until noon the next day.

  We had three more days on our hotel reservation and before our round-trip airline tickets would work. We weren’t really sure what to do with ourselves. We didn’t dare risk driving the rental car again. We took some time going through Sophia and Nick’s luggage—keeping some things and discarding others. Camille was devastated that she hadn’t gotten to say goodbye to Sophia and Nick, but she was ecstatic to claim most of Sophia’s clothing. I didn’t think I could ever bring myself to wear any of it. The memories were too close.

  I did take the flowers Sophia had carried during her wedding and pressed them between the pages of a book. I would do something with them later—when I was ready.

  We took a wad of cash we found in Jeremiah’s wallet and ordered a simple headstone for Sophia’s grave. “Nicholas and Sophia Briggs Trenton—Together At Last, Never To Be Forgotten” was the inscription we chose. We thought it was much better than the crudely etched stone currently at her grave that only said, “Sophia Mason.” We cleared the dead leaves and weeds from her grave and covered the site with flowers, hoping Nick and Sophia were somewhere watching—knowing we had not forgotten them. The rare visitor to the Old Plantation Cemetery would never know the true identity of the person buried there, but maybe wherever she was, she could watch and appreciate our gesture. The three of us sat under the tree next to her grave for a long time that day.

  “Do you wonder where the map would have led? I mean, if you hadn’t set it on fire, do you think we could have figured it out?” Peter asked.

  “I know I’ve been wondering about it. What if there was actual buried treasure somewhere?” Camille added.

  I looked at Peter and then looked back at the ground. “I didn’t burn the map.”

  “What?”

  “I didn’t burn the map.”

  “What are you talking about, Jamie?”

  “When we were getting ready to leave the barn I saw another piece of paper lying in the dirt. Out of curiosity I picked it up. It was just an old bill of sale for some horses, but I stuffed it in my shirt with the map anyway. That’s the paper I lit on fire.”

  “Are you being serious right now? Why didn’t you tell us before now?”

  I shrugged. “After the Goodwins disappeared, I was scared to say anything because I didn’t want them to come back.”

  “Jamie, do you realize you conned the con man?” Peter asked incredulously.

  I nodded.

  “Ooo! We’re going on a treasure hunt,” Camille squealed.

  “Not now,” I said. “Someday we will, but not now. That adventure can wait.”

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Shadow of a Life is a work of fiction. But not entirely. In November of1872, Captain Benjamin Briggs really did board the Mary Celeste with his wife Mary and daughter Sophia. Captain Briggs was a seasoned mariner and sailing had been a part of his family for generations.

  In early December, the ship was spotted by Captain David Morehouse’s ship, the Dei Gratia, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Morehouse was an acquaintance of Captain Briggs. As the Dei Gratia approached the Mary Celeste it became apparent that something was not right. After boarding the ship, the crew of the Dei Gratia found that no one remained aboard. The Mary Celeste had become a ghost ship, seeming to sail itself.

  Although theory after theory has been given for what happened on that fateful trip, no one will ever be able to say for sure what really occurred. And no one will ever know what really happened to little Sophia Matilda Briggs.

  Special thanks to Brian Hicks. I found “Ghost Ship: The Mysterious True Story of the Mary Celeste and Her Missing Crew” by Brian Hicks to be an extremely important research tool.

  The second book in the Soul Saver series is available now.

  Haven Waiting

  Soul Saver: Book Two

  Continue for an excerpt.

  She rose to her feet, brushing the dirt from her clothes, and stuck her hand out for me to shake. “I don’t think I’ve introduced myself properly. I’m Haven Mills.”

  My mouth dropped and I stared at her. Haven? With an H? Could this be the ghost of the person who made the map? My mind screamed and every part of my body felt as if electricity was running through it. I’d felt that feeling before—right before we found the map in the barn in Virginia.

  Haven still held her hand out to me and I forced myself to reach one of my own trembling hands out to shake hers. It felt as if a shock went through my body the moment our skin touched. I knew Haven felt it, too. We continued to stare at each other for a long moment, not breaking the grip of our hands. I forgot that Peter and Camille were even there.

  Finally, she whispered, “How do you know about ghosts?”

  My voice caught in my throat, but I managed to choke out, “I’m a soul saver.”

  About the Author

  Tifani Clark grew up on a farm in southeastern Idaho (yes, that’s where they grow all the potatoes) as the middle of five children. She had a lot of space to imagine and daydream and often pictured herself as a character in one of the many books she read. She was habitually found pretending to be Scarlet O’Hara. Tifani loves mystery and hates it when one goes unsolved. She is married to the love of her life and is the mother to four fabulous children. When not writing, she enjoys playing the violin and piano and traveling to new places. She especially enjoys visits to national parks and places of historical significance.

  Copyright Tifani Clark 2014

  Cover Design Cindy C. Bennett

  Cover Copyright Cindy C. Bennett2014

  Cover image copyrights:

  Serov_Vladimir (Vladimir Serov)

  Miiisha (Michaela Stejskalova)

  littleny (lisa combs)

  yuliabelka86 (Юлия Гончарова)

  mppriv (Mariusz Patrzyk)

  Interior Design: Cindy C. Bennett

  All rights reserved. No parts of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Exceptions are reviewers who may quote short excerpts for review.

  All Rights Reserved USA

  ABCD Publishing

  https://www.tifaniclark.blogspot.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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