Beyond All Dreams by Elizabeth Camden Read Free Book Online Page B

female librarians like Gertrude would be shoved out of their jobs, all because Anna dared to ask the navy to correct that old report.
    Later that evening, Mrs. Horton sighed as she peeled the sheets back from her bed. “That woman is fooling herself if she thinks ‘bust food’ is going to land her a husband.”
    â€œMary-Margaret?”
    Mrs. Horton nodded. “A bit of human decency goes a lot further,” she said as she sank onto the mattress.
    It was too early to sleep, so Anna propped herself up against the headboard, wiggling to find a comfortable spot on the lumpy mattress. Their room was humble, with a single window and a dressing table between two narrow beds.
    Lieutenant Rowland’s sneering words kept prodding at the back of her mind. “The problem with the Culpeper was that it was stuffed with scientists and bookworms instead of real sailors.”
    Her father had been a cartographer, but he’d been a good sailor as well. The box of letters beneath Anna’s bed proved the strength of her father’s commitment to the navy. Even better than her father’s letters were his sketches. He’d been a fine artist and had sketched charcoal pictures of Anna playing atwhatever exotic ports of call the Culpeper visited. He drew fanciful pictures of Anna swinging from a coconut tree, swimming in the surf with a dolphin, or climbing on the rigging of the Culpeper . The sketches gave her a glimpse into her father’s daring life as he was traveling the world.
    It was Friday evening, and there was no need for her to rise early the following morning. “Do you mind if I read?” she asked Mrs. Horton.
    The older lady smiled gently as she reached for her sleeping mask. After sharing a room together for so long, they’d developed a routine. All Mrs. Horton cared about was tidiness and quiet, and Anna could provide both. So long as she had access to enough light to read, Anna could entertain herself for years. Anna twisted the dial on the kerosene lamp to brighten the room.
    Thoughts of the Culpeper had been nagging her all day, and she had a craving to revisit her father’s old letters. It had been years since she’d read them. She sneezed from the dust when she dragged the box from its hiding place beneath her bed.
    Sitting on the floor, her back against the bed frame, she began skimming the letters. Most were brief, written in simple language a child could understand. Aside from the whimsical sketches, her father’s letters were very ordinary, usually consisting of gentle admonitions to study hard and behave for Aunt Ruth.
    All except his last letter. She pulled the final letter from the stack. It had been posted only a week before the Culpeper disappeared and was different from all the others. Anna unfolded it, and for the first time in her life she read her father’s last letter with adult eyes.
    With each line she read, the constriction in her chest grew tighter. Something was very wrong with this letter.
    As an expert cartographer, her father had been meticulous; his attention to detail was flawless. But it seemed that each lineof this letter contained contradictory information. She read it over and over, her confusion growing as the implications sank in. Her father was trying to tell her something with this letter, but he was careful to disguise his words and she couldn’t make sense of what he was trying to say.
    One thing was certain, though. The Culpeper did not sink in that hurricane, and this letter could prove it.

4

    T he following morning, Anna was still mulling over her father’s confusing letter. She needed help putting this puzzle together and knew exactly to whom she could turn. Neville Bernhard had been Anna’s best friend since childhood, and he would help her now.
    The seafaring neighborhood of Alexandria, tucked just outside of Washington, wasn’t the easiest place for quiet, introverted children, which guaranteed both