Chapter Seventeen

Partners

Dimas Gómez waved a paper in his hand as he ran over to Verónica.

"You should wipe that goofy grin off your face before anyone sees you," she teased jovially.

He lifted her up in excitement and spun around on his heels before he put her down again.

"Dimas," she chastised lightly.

"They're interested, Verónica. They want to try my invention and they want me to help them. We're to split the shares," he trailed off and laughed. "We're going to make it work, we're going to be rich!"

"Let me see that," she demanded seriously and reached out for the contract.

"Don't you believe me?" he asked dumbfounded.

"Of course, I do silly. I just don't want them to use you for their own benefit," she reasoned.

He crossed his arms over his chest and looked at her somewhat cockily. "And do they?" he asked.

Verónica skimmed the paper and shook her head. "No," she finally replied. "There's one thing, Dimas."

He frowned. "Yes?"

"It says Dimas Gómez and Verónica de García here," she said.

"If you refuse to be my wife, I'd very much like you to be my business partner. I need someone bright and beautiful at my side," he said charmingly.

She looked at him innocently. "Have you asked if I want to be your wife?"

"I-," he began. "I didn't think you wanted-,"

Verónica broke into the most beautiful smile he'd ever seen. "Maybe you should, Dimas," she said in a husky subdued voice.

OOOOOO

"Nicolás," Fernando called as he and Carolina walked up to the couple sitting next to each other on the aft deck, overlooking the sunset. "I thought you were supposed to rest in your cabin?"

Carolina sat down next to the first officer and smiled while she gently placed a hand on his shoulder to offer him comfort. Eva leaned forward on the other side of Nicolás and smiled at her sister.

Fernando took in the paleness of the other man's skin and the bruising that still graced the side of his face. While Nicolás looked better than he had earlier he was far from fine.

Eva gently reached for the collar of Nicolás's gown and pulled it closer around his neck. At his questioning gaze she offered a light smile. "You seemed frozen," she said softly.

"There they are," Varela spoke up from behind them, looking smug as he tipped his hat at them. "Mr. Fábregas and the three self-appointed detectives."

"Detective Varela," Carolina acknowledged curtly. "Thank you for saving my sister."

"And for saving Nicolás," Eva added softly as she took a moment to smile at the pale man sitting next to her.

"Actually, it was nice of you to join us, detective," Fernando said seriously as he crossed his arms over his chest. "We have all the pieces of the puzzle."

"Oh," Varela made a face, clearly surprised.

Eva's eyes lit up at the statement.

"You see," Carolina began, "Aníbal de Souza invested a great deal in the shipping company, not because he really believed in Fernando but because he saw an opportunity to smuggle things between countries without being detected."

"I knew that Aníbal's business deals where somewhat dubious at times but as a member of my family I had to trust him, for my sister's sake at least. He approached me one day and claimed to have a proposition for me. He wanted to buy himself into my company and provide me with money to be able to purchase the Codonga. All he asked in return was to oversee the refit of the ship himself," Fernando explained. "I told him I needed insight as well but he insisted he'd be able to do most of the work. In the end we came to the agreement that I had the final say."

"When the Codonga arrived at drydock the supposedly deceased Carlos Villanueva appeared at Aníbal's doorstep. He couldn't reveal his resurrection to Fernando for obvious reasons so he gambled and struck a deal with Aníbal instead," Carolina filled in.

"Papá had managed to strike quite a lucrative deal with the German military thanks to Sofía's contacts. He planned to escape to Brazil with the newly gained fortune but his greed made him double-cross his accomplice," Eva explained darkly.

"Sofía Louisa Catalan," Nicolás deduced.

Eva nodded. "Somehow he managed to convince her that all the gold he'd received was in that suitcase Uncle Pedro brought onboard the ship," she said. "During all this secrecy Uncle Pedro and Doctor Rojas found documents with their forged signatures on. Documents that would have sentenced them to prison for a lifetime if they didn't act."

"I saw them working late at nights, or I thought they did," Carolina added. "Instead they were trying to find out who'd put their names on those papers. In the end they traced everything back to papá. In a desperate attempt to free themselves and to get rid of the forgery they tried to kill Carlos."

"His accident," Fernando stated.

"Only, as we all know, he didn't die," Eva said gloomily.

"But Sofía thought he did," Nicolás added. "She set out to find you and the microfilm that would once again give false evidence of Pedro Villanueva and Alvaro Rojas involvement in the transportation of those 527 people who'd been wrongly accused and sentenced to their deaths."

"Then she blackmailed Uncle Pedro and our family doctor, claiming she had evidence of their involvement and that those evidence would be brought to the police if they didn't pay up," Eva said seriously.

"Okay, I'll have to admit you've done a nice groundwork," Varela admitted "Tell me, where does the Frenchman, Jean Fonte, get into the picture?"

Carolina looked troubled for a moment. "I hired him as a driver for one of the company trucks," she revealed. "Somewhere along the drive he must have realized something was up and found out what the cargo was-,"

"How could he not?" Fernando questioned.

"The gold," Carolina clarified. "Sofía must have told some story about why they would unload the shoes in France, keep the boxes and then proceed to put all those people in the back of the trucks. I don't really know about that and I guess we'll never know the true story."

"Papá must have loaded the gold in the empty shoe boxes while Sofía was elsewhere," Eva mused.

"Jean snuck out one night and searched the cargo hold of his truck," Nicolás said seriously, his eyes dark as he recalled the other man bragging about it. "Instead of revealing that he knew, he drove back in silence, acting like he knew nothing. The night they got back to your factory he broke in and stole a portion of it before he nonchalantly returned the day after and quit his job."

Carolina gaped at him indignantly. "He told you that?" she questioned in disbelief.

"Told me?" Nicolás echoed dryly. "He bragged about it. Told me how stupid you really were – all of you."

Eva pursed her lips into a thin line of displeasure and set her jaw as her eyes darkened.

"During that time, he couldn't forget the beautiful face of the petite French woman called Chantal," Nicolás added sarcastically. "He drove all the way back to find her sick and on the verge of dying in the camp. In fear of a pandemic the doctors literally ushered her out. She saw him as her savior and later lover. A man who'd stolen enough gold that it would have lasted a lifetime if he'd been more careful."

Fernando shook his head in dismay at the whole thing as Eva gently squeezed Nicolás's shoulder.

"There is something I don't understand," Carolina said. "How did Sofía get to Brazil and what was her connection to that port authority officer who came onboard to get the gold from Uncle Pedro?"

Varela huffed and then broke into an enigmatic smirk. "I can tell you about that," he offered. "You see. Lieutenant Alberto Cardoso – the real Alberto Cardoso – died in a tragic road accident five years ago in Spain. I thought the man looked familiar somehow when I saw him onboard the ship but I wasn't sure so I had to do a little digging."

The detective smiled as he saw he had their full attention. "Sofía sent a telegram to him, telling him, discreetly where to look for her. She never intended to run off with Carlos, only with the gold but she had to get Carlos with her in order to get the gold with her. Unfortunately, Pedro Villanueva had snatched the gold out of the captain's safe while pretending to have lost his eyesight and as everything unraveled the good doctor snapped and shot Carlos Villanueva to death as you all know."

Both Carolina and Eva looked dejected, none of them wanting to be remembered about that horrible scene.

"So, Cardoso picked up Sofía with a boat and drove to the port in the middle of the night," Nicolás deduced. "No one spotted them during the commotion on the deck."

"And he had to get back onboard to get the gold," Eva added as she realized what had happened.

"If Cardoso is deceased," Fernando mused as he stuck his hands deep into his trouser pockets, "then who was he?"

Varela lit his pipe and puffed a little smoke. "He's a corrupt Spanish police officer," he finally replied. "I have a feeling he and Sofía Louisa Catalan have been working together on several occasions. Who knows, there might be more between them than partnership in crimes."

"The baby," Carolina blurted. "For a while I thought it was papá's but its Cardoso's, or whatever his real name is."

"Sergeant Pepe Porteya," Varela drawled. "He will be properly cared for in prison as my fellow officers in the Brazilian police force hauls him out of his office at the port authorities. Which by the way, should be anytime now."

Eva sighed in defeat. "Sofía will get away," she said in a subdued voice.

"Perhaps," Varela reasoned, "Perhaps not."

Fernando frowned at the statement.

"You see, she's been a con and a fraud for almost her entire life. Even professionals get sloppy once in a while. She's made the mistake of using her real name during all this – perhaps because it gave her a kick, raised the odds a little. I don't really know and I don't care," Varela explained. "Unless she leaves Brazil and/or changes appearance drastically they have everything they need to nail her."

Silence settled over the two couples and the detective for a moment before the latter spoke up again. "I am afraid I have to leave you as I have other matters to attend to before we arrive at port tomorrow morning," he excused himself and tipped his hat slightly at them.

Eva watched the security officer disappear into the shadows and turned to Nicolás with a fond smile. "Its way past your bedtime," she teased.

Carolina reached out to touch his forehead and grimaced. "You´re cold Nicolás," she said seriously with a hint of worry as she glanced at her sister.

Fernando offered Nicolás a half-amused smirk as he looked at him, the younger man was clearly not appreciating all the fuzz around him. The ship's owner offered his hand and hauled the first officer up from the wooden sofa. "Are you okay?" he asked kindly.

Nicolás nodded even though it was clear to Fernando that he was hurting.

"Come on, you can lean on me. While Eva is stubborn, she's not strong enough to aid you back to your cabin alone and I'd hate to have my ship's first officer fall flat on his face and set back his recovery," Fernando said and then nodded at his wife. "Carolina, go ahead and open the door."

OOOOOO

To be continued