Bentley and Murray stared at Carmelita in silence as she turned the pages of the Thievius Raccoonus, absolutely absorbed in the book.
"Are we supposed to say something?" whispered the hippo.
"Uh, I don't know." replied the turtle. By then, Carmelita had been reading for more than half an hour. It was then that she looked at the time and realized that she was going to be late for work.
"Fuck. I've got to go." She left the book on the table before her, got up, and took her coat. "Thanks for the tea, Murray. If you guys find anything, give me a call, as always." The vixen was about to leave when Bentley interrupted her.
"Wait, Carmelita! Don't you want to take the book?" he said from the couch.
The fox cocked her head. "Are you sure?" she asked.
"Yeah, you can bring it back next week," added Murray.
Carmelita looked at them and then looked at the book. "You sure you guys don't mind?"
"Of course. Take it home, read it, and if you find anything that could lead us to Sly, hit us up," said Bentley.
"I will. Thanks," said Carmelita before taking the book and leaving the Cooper Gang's hideout. Before walking down the street, the fox hid the Thievius Raccoonus in her coat, but it was then that she got an idea. Instead of going to the station, the vixen decided to go back home and call in sick to finish reading Sly's contributions in the book. A selfish decision, perhaps. But she would rather spend the rest of her morning looking back on her old memories with the thief than dealing with paperwork and Le Paradox. Once in her apartment, Carmelita sat on the couch and kept reading.
"...It was such a pleasant surprise coming across Carmelita here in Venice. It turns out she's here for the same reason as Murray, to sort out the tar-polluted water situation. And now that she knows we're here too, she's also after us, as usual. Earlier this morning, Bentley found out that Don Octavio had hired some gondola gang to kill her while she was on patrol. So we went to the canal and took them out. Thankfully, she didn't notice us, but Bentley warned me that, by saving her, we were only making our operation more difficult. It was true, but I couldn't let those thugs hurt Carmelita. I care about her, and I wouldn't want anything bad to happen to her..."
The vixen went through a rollercoaster of emotions as she discovered a part of the raccoon she had never seen before. Realizing how Sly felt during all those years felt like a hole in her heart that she knew she could not fix. She just missed him so much. After the vixen finished reading everything the raccoon had written from the night they met at the opera to before the whole Kaine Island thing, she closed the book and covered her face with her hands. Tears began to roll down her face as a painful feeling of helplessness ate her up. After the crying stopped, Carmelita wiped her tears and stared at the book. The symbol on its cover reminded her of every calling card Sly had left her in the past. The fox closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and promised herself she would keep looking for the thief, no matter what.
A few hours later, after having lunch, the vixen sat at her desk and tried to clear her mind by getting some work done. At some point, she noticed the Thievius Raccoonus on the table in the middle of her living room and got curious about the rest of the book. Unable to focus on work, Carmelita took the book, sat on the couch again, and started to read it from the beginning. She was soon hooked on the Cooper Clan's history.
The vixen read through the lives and accomplishments of every Cooper ancestor, as well as their abilities and techniques. It was fascinating to read about master thieves she had even met, like Tennessee or Galleth. The book also contained details, such as the evolution of their canes and masks. When she was near the end, Carmelita came upon the tragic night in which Sly's father died, and the book was stolen. From there, it was continued by Bentley and Sly, who wrote about the Fiendish Five and the Clockwerk Parts.
By the time she finished the book, it was past 10 p.m. Carmelita yawned when she realized she had been reading almost all day. The fox left the book on her bedside table and went to sleep, or at least she tried. She tossed and turned until she covered her face with a pillow and closed her eyes. But when she opened them, the pillow was gone, and she was lying on her couch.
"What?" The vixen looked around as she sat up. Indeed, she was in her living room.
Before she started to think she had fallen asleep while reading, Carmelita turned around to see someone sitting on the armchair next to her. It was a raccoon almost identical to Sly, only older. He was peacefully reading the Thievius Racconus while smoking a tobacco pipe.
"Hi, Carmelita. I hope you don't mind the smoke." he greeted her once he noticed she was awake.
"Who are you?" she asked, still somewhat confused.
"Oh, right. Where are my manners? The name's Conner… Conner Cooper." The raccoon flashed a charming smile.
"You're Sly's father!" The vixen's eyes widened in disbelief. "But that can't be.. you're dead."
The raccoon chuckled. "Indeed I am… I have been dead for quite some time now."
"So… this is a dream?" she asked while arching her eyebrow.
"Well… not exactly. I'm not your conscience. We, Coopers, can use our spiritual forms to communicate with our worthy heirs through the Thievius Raccoonus."
"I'm a worthy heir?" She pointed her finger at herself.
"You're not a Cooper, but you are the one who broke a curse that had haunted our family for thousands of years. I'd say that makes you more than worthy."
Carmelita went silent as she looked back on the night she destroyed Clockwerk's hate chip. "So… Why are you here?" asked the fox.
"To help you find Sly, of course."
"Do you know where he is?" The vixen moved closer to the raccoon as her voice caught a hint of desperation.
"I'm afraid not. But what I do know is that the answer that you seek is inside this book." He looked at the Thievius Raccoonus.
"But I've already read it, and so has Bentley." She shrugged.
"I know. That's why you have to look beyond its pages." He closed the book and offered it to Carmelita. The fox tried to take it. But, before she could, the raccoon interrupted her. "Wait! After I hand you this book, you'll wake up. Before that, I need to ask you something." The vixen listened carefully. "If you find Sly, please, tell him that I'm very proud of the man he has become and that, if she could see him, his mother would be too." Conner felt a lump in his throat as he talked.
The fox, with eyes on the verge of tears, took the raccoon's hand. "Conner, I promise you I'll find him."
Sly's father smiled. "I know you will." He handed her the book. "Oh, and, Carmelita… Thank you for taking care of him all these years."
Before she could even answer, the fox suddenly woke up in her bed. She was sweating, and her breathing was heavily agitated. As she gasped for air, Carmelita turned on her bedside lamp and grabbed the Thievius Raccoonus. She jumped out of bed and rushed into the kitchen, careful not to trip or fall. Determined to discover the whereabouts of Sly once in for all, she made some coffee and sat at her desk to investigate the book more thoroughly.
Carmelita read each page of the Thievius Raccoonus three or four times, paying attention to every small detail they had. Luckily for her, Slytunkhamen's chapter was one of the firsts in the book. In it, there were many writings, illustrations and hieroglyphs. The vixen looked for some kind of pattern between the words, but she found nothing. The book had most likely been transcribed by one of Sly's closest ancestors, and the chance of whatever message the raccoon had written on the original pages being left out was high.
Just when she was about to move on to the next chapter, Carmelita thought she read Sly's name out of the corner of her eye somewhere and decided to give it another read. Since the ancestor's name contained the word Sly, the fox thought she was probably being dumb and paranoid. Her thinking changed once she focused on an illustration of Slytunkhamen I in front of a wall. The raccoon was posing with his two small canes and his pharaoh headdress. At first, everything seemed fine, but then the vixen took a closer look at the wall behind the ancestor. It was carved with parallel straight lines and different hieroglyphics, but Carmelita noticed some unusual cracks in the lower right corner that appeared to spell something.
SLY… STUCK… HERE…
Carmelita rubbed her eyes and blinked repeatedly. Was she seeing things?
SLY… STUCK… HERE…
No, those words were definitely there. The vixen felt how her heartbeat quickened as she began to breathe rapidly. She got up from her chair and read it over and over again.
SLY… STUCK… HERE…
The fox paced around her apartment as she tried to calm herself down and think about what to do next. She obviously had to tell Bentley and Murray, so she took her phone and dialed the hideout's number.
"Pick up, pick up, pick up…" said Carmelita as she nervously thumped her foot.
No one answered, which was no surprise since it was past 3 in the morning. But the vixen didn't give up and dialed again. She heard the phone ring five times before going to voicemail again. Her desperation and impatience began to rise after she tried calling them for a third time, again without any success. Then, Carmelita decided to get her coat and the book and set off to the Cooper Gang's hideout. This time, she decided to go by car. So, after less than five minutes of slightly reckless driving, she arrived at her destination. The vixen quickly got out of the car and banged on the hideout's door.