A Leap Of Fate

Chaper XVIII- Loving, Leaving

I fidgeted while waiting for Robell to unlock the door to the treasure room. It was all dark and quiet. Robell did his job excellently, with no noise, just flawless. After about a minute, the door to the Treasure room was opened. Robell searched for my hand in the darkness and held my hand as we made our way inside.

I felt neither afraid nor unconfident. For some reason, something tells me that with him tonight, we will find at least one item. It’s impossible with Robell to go back empty handed.

He then slowly let go of my hand as I went to the south of the room where some chests were placed. There were also modern vaults made in steel and glasses with precious and rare jewels inside them. Robell was in the corner that looked like a small office where the Auditor worked or Don Cipriano rests when he’s checking or just admiring his wealth. Robell was already working so I started too.

I tried all the chests, and out of the six big ones, only two were open. I dug through and saw nothing but expensive and imported textiles. It crossed my mind that they probably were taken from the farm workers as well. On the other open chest there were small jewelry boxes, precious ones made of silver and gold studded with stones of different kinds. I instantly recognized one, once owned by Monica. But there wasn’t anything on it.

I walked around the room and cringed. It smelled of Tobaccos. In the other side of the room there were the bundles and bundles of them. So that’s what Robell was talking about before. They do not only get more Tobaccos from the farmers than what they should but they also do that in some of their lands in Madrid and some other parts of Spain.

I went to an old bookshelf. There were books and records. I really should open it, I thought. The papers looked important and we might get something from it. I remembered Siervo. I wished he came with us here; he had all the keys to this house.

I tried feeling the shelf with my hand through the darkness until I found the lock. I held it and shook it. It was rusty, like it was never opened in many years. Now how should I open it?

I gasped. There came a hand over mine.

“Ssshh.”

It was Robell. His voice sounded like he’s laughing silently.

“Geez. This is locked. But I see we should really open it. Can you do it?”

“Let us see.”

I saw his hands swiftly moved in the darkness. I didn’t clearly saw what he was doing but it took some time.

“It is not easy to unlock this. This wasn’t opened since… more than nine years ago.”

“What?” I whispered. I wondered why that was. Could the contents of the shelf that important? So there’s nothing that could probably help us there about Monica’s case.

But I could find out something about Bienve or the two f              families’ issue.

“I’ll just take a look at the study there. Call me when its unlocked.”

“Yes. Take care.”

I smiled to myself in darkness then went over to the desk in the little office.

I opened all the drawers and tried to read every documents I can find. Mostly were in Spanish and so my skills in the language was tested. There were many land tittles in different parts of Europe, contracts, and I also saw Eloisa’s baptismal certificate.

There were some photos too, mostly of different conferences and meeting. But nothing was interesting or helpful.

“Monica.”