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221 pages

English

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After a nerve-shattering encounter with military justice in The Accused, Craig Parshall's third novel, all lawyer Will Chambers wants to do this summer is relax with his wife, Fiona...A long stay on the North Carolina coast seems perfect. But when Will reluctantly looks into a local inheritance case involving Jonathan Joppa, a down-on-his-luck preacher"Piracy chargeJoppa's ancestor? What...when?""Why, for being part of Blackbeard's pirate crew...in the early 1700s..."Will just wants to rest, but Fiona keeps insisting there's something missing...buried. Soon the two have had a near-fatal brush with smugglersand together they've unearthed the truth: about a pirate's history, about Jonathan Joppa, and about two remarkable womenone in the past, and one in the present.

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Publié par	Harvest House Publishers
Date de parution	01 mars 2004
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9780736960410
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0050€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS
EUGENE, OREGON
The Scripture quotation in chapters 8 and 69 is from 1 Samuel 1:27 and is taken from the New King James Version. Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
The Scripture quotation in chapter 18 is from 1 Corinthians 15:55 and is taken from the King James Version of the Bible.
The Scripture quotation in chapter 70 is from Jonah 1:3 and is taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION . NIV . Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by the Inter-national Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.
The Scripture verse later in chapter 70 is paraphrased by the author from Matthew 11:28.
Cover by Left Coast Design, Portland, Oregon
Cover photo Michael Aw/Photodisc Green/Getty Images

This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author s imagination or are used fictitiously. It is the intent of the author and publisher that all events, locales, organizations, and persons portrayed herein be viewed as fictitious.
MISSING WITNESS
Copyright 2004 by Craig L. Parshall
Published by Harvest House Publishers
Eugene, Oregon 97402
www.harvesthousepublishers.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Parshall, Craig, 1950-
Missing witness / Craig Parshall.
p. cm. - (Chambers of justice ; bk. 4)
ISBN 978-0-7369-1175-7 (pbk.)
ISBN 978-0-7369-6041-0 (eBook)
1. Chambers, Will (Fictitious character)-Fiction. 2. Inheritance and succession-Fiction. 3. Seaside resorts-Fiction. 4. North Carolina-Fiction. 5. Smuggling-Fiction. I. Title.
PS3616.A77M57 2004
813 .54-dc22
2003020632
All rights reserved. No part of this electronic publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means-electronic, mechanical, digital, photocopy, recording, or any other-without the prior written permission of the publisher. The authorized purchaser has been granted a nontransferable, nonexclusive, and noncommercial right to access and view this electronic publication, and purchaser agrees to do so only in accordance with the terms of use under which it was purchased or transmitted. Participation in or encouragement of piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of author s and publisher s rights is strictly prohibited.
Dedication
To the memory and heroism of my distant ancestor, Elias Parshall-a ship s captain in the 1700s in the American colonies who defeated an attack by pirates along the West Indies trade route and saved both his ship and his grateful passengers.
And to my mother and my father, who passed on to me an appreciation for the mysteries of the water-whether the oceans, wild and untamed or the placid lakes of northern Wisconsin.
Contents
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
About the Author
A Note from the Author
The Chambers of Justice Series
1
November 22, 1718
Naval Battle near Ocracoke Island off the Coast of North Carolina
I SAAC J OPPA WAS NOT THINKING ABOUT the criminal charges against him. Not now. Instead, it was a question of living-or dying.
Down in the belly of the ship-a large, triple-masted man-of-war called Adventure, bristling with heavy cannons-Isaac and the other men could hear the sounds of a ferocious battle being waged up on the deck above them. It would be the bloodiest fifteen minutes of naval warfare ever fought off continental American shores.
They could hear the explosion of pistols overhead, the mad clanging of swords, and the scuffling of feet, followed by the dull thuds of bodies as they fell. And there were the screams of men-hideous and tortured cries-that rose up from those who were wounded and dying.
Joppa was one of the few occupants of the pirate ship still remaining down in the hold. He was standing in the stairway-poised to run topside. But he hesitated.
Though he was only twenty-four years old, he looked older. During the past twelve months, he had lived with the treacherous gang of the most feared pirate in the British colonies. That had transformed him. His time at sea had creased his face, and the sun made his skin dark and leathery-and the terror of the company he had kept had given him a gaunt, harrowing look.
The young man knew that the captain of the Adventure, Edward Teach, was up on the top deck. From the Carolinas, across the Spanish Main, and all the way to England, Teach was known as the feared and ruthless Blackbeard. Now he was ferociously exchanging blows, slashings, stab wounds, and pistol fire with sailors from Britain s Royal Navy.
Joppa had no way of knowing which way the battle above him was turning. But for him, time was running out.
He clutched at something hidden in his shirt. He quickly pulled out a small ceramic plate-only slightly bigger than a doubloon. He frantically studied the miniature portrait of the blond-haired beauty that was painted on the plate, memorizing her delicate ivory features. If Isaac Joppa was going to die, then he wanted her image to be the last thing that occupied his mind s eye.
You run now, Mister Joppa!
The command came from Caesar, a large, muscular African pirate who stood with a lighted torch in his hand. He was half hidden in the shadows.
Caesar glanced over at the barrels filled with gunpowder that were next to him. Three men-visitors who had stopped at the ship the night before for a drinking party and had stayed the night-now had Caesar surrounded, and they were slowly closing in, each brandishing a club.
You run! Caesar shouted again.
That is when the men rushed him.
Joppa stuffed the little plate inside his sailor s shirt, quickly tied the top laces tight, and fetched a small, short sword in his right hand for the fight above deck. And then he ran up the stairs. He was not moving like a man, but more like some jungle animal-sprinting, arms flailing-into the middle of the battle.
But as he launched out of the stairwell like a cannonball, he slipped on the blood that was pooled on the deck. Flipping up in the air and landing on his back, he narrowly missed the sword of a British sailor who was swinging for his neck.
Joppa kicked the legs out from under the sailor, who tumbled to the ground. Joppa scrambled to his feet.
On the port side of the ship Edward Teach, still standing tall in his long black coat, with his unkempt hair and wild beard flying, was swinging his sword around him like a crazy man-fending off the leader of the English attack, Lieutenant John Maynard, and several of his mates.
Maynard charged him, but Teach sliced his cutlass right through Maynard s sword, breaking it in two. Then the pirate grabbed one of his many pistols from the leather chest belt with his left hand. But before he could fire it point blank at the English officer, a burly sailor in a tartan coat swung his broadsword from behind and landed a powerful blow to the pirate s neck.
It would soon be over. Joppa could see that now. He looked frantically for an escape. Several pirates were leaping off the starboard side of the ship like rats off a burning boat. The young man threw down his sword and joined them, leaping into the water. As he did, he heard the English sailors firing pistols at them from the ship.
When he surfaced, Joppa saw one of the pirates, hit by a pistol ball, begin to sink-then another. He dove down as far as he could and swam through the murky waters of the Ocracoke Inlet as long as he could hold his breath-as the shots rained down into the water.
When he finally surfaced again, he was disoriented. He looked about quickly-but then he saw the Adventure drifting in his direction. Several English sailors were lined along the starboard side. Their pistols exploded, and shots hit the water-to Joppa s left and to his right.
Joppa swam wildly.
Then a third volley. Somewhere in his back there was a numbness and a burning and searing pain.
Still struggling to try to swim to shore, he saw planks and debris from Lieutenant Maynard s battered ship floating around him. And bodies of the pirate crew-several of them-floating face down.
But now he was dizzy not sure whether his arms were still working swallowing water and gagging and coughing.
More shots were fired. But they seemed distant-and Isaac Joppa knew it was the end.
The end of his sorrowful fall from grace-his journey of despair. He had plunged from the earlier promise of peace and happiness he once knew, to being counted among the world s worst villains. He gagged on the briny water. His mind flashed to the final, ugly picture-his graceless death in the Ocracoke Inlet from a pistol ball in the back.
He only had enough strength to utter a single word.
Abigail.
And then the dark and cold of the ocean waters closed in all around him.
2
The Present
R IGHT THERE-IF YOU LOOK CLOSELY -you ll see Ocracoke Inlet. That s what we re looking for-between the two islands.
A dozen heads turned and studied the end