A/N: Another chapter... Not sure where I wanna go with the story now, any ideas?

Disclaimer: Sly Cooper, the Cooper Gang and all related characters are properties of Sucker Punch. Cortana Brea Harlow and other characters are owned by me, Breanna Edwards. This story isn't for profit, please don't sue. I'm just a huge fan.

Sly Cooper: Walking the Thin Line of Fate
Chapter 3

The Grand Museum of Art was surrounded by Interpol squad cars and agents, the whole place turned into another crime scene. Lieutenant Sebastian Harlow took careful examinations and photographs of the bare platform where the Prima Madonna sat before the intrusion. Inspector Carmelita Fox simmered, tapping her fingers on the wall next to the broken window. Yellow eyes that burned with a furious determination darted around below in the streets, looking for any sign for where they could have gone. She had them, right there. Today HAD to be the day where she was a terrible shot. It was just her luck.

Lt. Harlow stepped over to the Latina, a bag in hand with a clue. A piece of silvery wire sat lone in the plastic, glimmering in the coming dawn's light. "What's Sly Cooper's weapon of choice again?" He questioned the Inspector.

Carmelita snapped out of her fixed searching and turned to address the Lt. "Uh, a gold-hooked cane, a family heirloom that he gained when his father was murdered by the Fiendish Five. May I ask why, sir?" Her gaze narrowed to what was in the bag. She frowned. That's when she remembered Sly's accomplice had used wire to escape out of the window. She should have shot them down.

"And you said you saw Sly Cooper with this other...?" Lt. Harlow's voice trailed off, waiting for the Inspector to answer.

She continued staring at the wire intently, almost as if she were staring down its owner. Her eyes were burning with a different light now... "I'm not entirely sure what the species was, sir, but I do remember they had a fluffy tail, just as the perpetrator yesterday, and the wire they used quite clearly." She damned the wire, and the user to herself. If it weren't for his new accomplice, the vixen would have that ringtail in custody by now. She was tired of always coming so close, just to fail.

Lt. Harlow's voice tuned into her ears again as her rapid, cursing thoughts faded out, "...And you should have had backup on hand to help you make sure they didn't escape. I'm very disappointed in this, Inspector Fox, you acted unprofessionally. I don't want to see such a performance this poor again, especially from you."

Carmelita's ears tilted down, wincing a little at the harsh scolding from the older feline. "Yes sir. It won't happen again sir." She took the bag from the Lt., and he turned to walk away.

"I'm leaving the camera with the other officers. When everything is wrapped up here, make sure you develop these photos and scan them for anything. I want you to report to me at 3:00 PM today. I won't tolerate these thieves slipping right from under our noses." The American Longhair said, before leaving the room.

The fox gave a deep sigh, and leaned back against the wall. She turned her head to meet the lit horizon; the sun was coming and that meant it was almost morning. And she hadn't had a wink of sleep since the first intrusion. She couldn't get a wink now, even if she wanted to.

It was just her luck.

"Almost done here, and you'll be as good as new." Bentley murmured, rolling his wheelchair over to a table with some gauze, bandages, antibiotics... Everything you could find in a First Aid kit was there. The extracted piece of glass from Cortana's leg sat in a medical tray. Cortana herself was in a seat next to the table, biting her lip in excruciating pain. They couldn't give her much in terms of painkillers without knocking her out, so she refused. She was planning to leave after she was patched up anyway.

The turtle strolled back over, and bandaged her up after smearing some antibiotics on the wound to keep infection at bay. It wasn't a deep enough cut for stitches, so she would be fine. "There you go, madam, all better!"

"Thanks, I appreciate it, much." The ragdoll cat managed to squeeze out a grin from her pained expression, as she rose to leave. "Now, if you'll all excuse me-"

"Wait a moment; we barely got to know each other." Sly stated, prompting her to sit again while he sat in his own seat backwards. "We brought you to our safehouse to help you out, but how do we know you'll keep this location a secret?" It wasn't often that they brought someone to their hideout, obviously due to the risk of exposure. But the cat had an injury she got from helping both her and him escape. The least he could do was have Bentley fix her up, but while the turtle was doing that, he could get some much needed answers from her.

Murray, who sat a ways from them, was fiddling his thumbs, pondering many things from the climax of the Clockwerk disaster. His eyes glanced at Bentley's wheelchair, and he sighed deeply. He was in a perpetual melancholy about losing his grip on Clock-la's beak... If he were paying attention, Bentley would never be in this condition now. He definitely blamed himself for Bentley's inability to walk, but what could he do about it now?

Bentley sat the medical tray into his lap, before rolling over to the garbage to dump the bloodied glass out. Despite it being evidence, it was safe there; they always take their trash and burn it before relocating elsewhere. Bentley personally had no problem with the feline; he realized she was still a rookie in thieving; else she wouldn't have sustained any trauma. If she tried to attack them, she would be causing herself more pain and agony from trying to move. "Sly has a very valid point. We don't even know your name."

The feline opened her mouth to reply, but Sly did it for her, "Cortana Brea Harlow, master thief in training apparently. She has a lot of potential." He tapped his cane, an idle gesture while he smiled at her. "Never have I heard a name like that before."

The turtle sat his laptop onto another table, and opened the screen. With some quick clicking, he looked through the ThiefNet database of all known thieves and crooks, but to no avail. "Huh, it seems like our guest here doesn't have a record. I'm sure with trying to steal rare sculptures you'd develop some type of recognition." He motioned to the Prima Madonna; the pristine marble sculpture sat a foot away from him, undamaged.

Cortana's eyebrow went up, dubious. "I'm sure I have some... Oh." She stopped, realizing she just started leaving calling cards with the break-in of the mansion. And she was sure if Bentley could look up all the info on all thieves, then he had information for all the officers too, and she didn't want him to make the connection between her and her father. That would be too much trouble. "Nah, I don't have a record. Sorry." She smirked, falling silent soon after.

"So, you're new to the thieving scene I see. Care to tell us what made you want to take up a profession like this? This isn't a soft job for a lovely lady such as yourself, you could really get hurt." The raccoon tilted the brim of his hat up with his cane, a playful smirk on his lips. He knew well enough she could at least get away if she needed to.

Cortana rolled her eyes, she saw through the tease. "I'm just a thief. Maybe boredom got me into it, maybe the easy money. I usually fence most of the stuff I get. Can't really keep it at home..." Her thoughts changed to her father, he would definitely notice all the stolen goods she collected.

"Ah, you have a home here?" Bentley inquired. "So you're a thief from the local area?" Bentley hammered away quickly at his laptop, possibly recording the conversation while it progressed.

Cortana had half the mind to lash her wire onto the turtle's laptop to keep her information off the net, but she figured as long as she didn't say anything too personal, he'd have nothing to write about. She just hoped there weren't any secret cameras on her either. "Something like that. I have connections in the area."

Sly gave her another throughout look over from his seat. "You don't sound or look Italian at all."

Bentley continued typing, muttering information, "Cortana Brea Harlow, female. Species: Cat, ragdoll variety. 5'5, 5'2 without platforms, white and cream colored fur. Origin in America based on the accent, possibly the West Coast."

"Hey! Stop with all of that, I don't want anyone knowing who I am." The feline had a deep frown on her features. "You're gonna upload that stuff onto ThiefNet, aren't you?"

"Nah, we don't contribute to that. Some undercover police officers use it. We're careful about what we say and don't say on there." Sly twirled his cane around in his fingers with ease. "There's no problem. It's just for Bentley's own records."

"That's precisely what I'm doing." The turtle confirmed.

Cortana relaxed for a moment, before she noticed the sun was coming up, and panicked. "Hey, what time is it right now?"

"Approximately 6:38 and 32 seconds, why?" Bentley answered.

The cat jumped up, and squealed from a twinge of pain from her injury, but she couldn't afford to stop now. "I've gotta go, I'm sorry guys. I have a bit of a date to keep." She limped her way to the door, lifting up her muffler.

Sly Cooper lazily reached his cane over, the hook catching her and softly, slowly pulling her back over to him, being careful in not hurting that leg of hers. "You're forgetting your date here."

Cortana felt the hairs on her neck raised as he said that, but he motioned to the Prima Madonna. "Oh. You can keep her. She brightens this place up." She smirked, pointing her chin to the extremely old pizza box on the table. "That's gross by the way." With that, she reached into her V-neckline and handed Sly her calling card; the blue and black four suits with the white embellishment of wires. "Here's my card, in case I'm needed."

Sly took it, and looked at it. He didn't see any name, any number or anything that would get him into contact with her. He looked back up at her, puzzled.

Bentley wheeled himself to Sly, and took the card. "Ah, I see, there's an encryption right in the flourish of the design. Very clever, I must say."

"Thanks. Okay, now I really have to leave." She said, haste rising in her voice. She unhooked herself, and limped to the door. She turned for a moment, and tapped the hippo on the shoulder, much to his surprise. "Thank you for driving." Without him, it would have taken Sly and her forever to get back to the safehouse in her condition. She was grateful to him for driving.

The pink hippo smiled to himself. At least he helped someone out.

And with that, she headed out the door, and latched her wire onto the nearest streetlight, swinging down and landing on her good leg, as swiftly as she could before disappearing between the buildings.

***

The turn of the 7th hour of the day was coming. Tumbling into an open window, the ragdoll cat landed on a light blue carpet. Her room was a rather big one, in a lovely two-story home, next to the river that ran through the city. An unmade bed with an open laptop sitting on it was in the middle of the room, a desk with some papers, books, little figures and other things to the side of it, and her door a few feet away from that. Cortana quickly shrugged and hopped out of her thief outfit, cringing with the surges of pain in her leg.

Carmelita figured she would be a hard-ass, and specifically request the feline to be at the office at 7 in the morning, since she comes in at 7:30. The office doesn't open until 8, but being the workaholic the vixen was, she wanted to instill the 'early to bed, early to rise' quality she had in her intern... Or, just to be a hard-ass. Cortana didn't know which it was.

"Cake Batter, are you in there dear?" A knock rapped at her door. "Love, it's almost 7. It's time to wake up for work."

"Uh, yeah Mom, I'm up!" Cortana worked faster, slipping off her boots, terrified her mom would come in and see the ensemble. She threw the entire thing into her closet, and grabbed her work pants off her desk chair, jumping into them with a yelp.

"Cortana Brea, are you alright? What was that?" Her mother's knuckles rapped at the door again. "Shall I come in?"

"Mom, give me a moment, I'm naked!" Hastily, she pulled on her sweater, and glanced over at the closet, seeing her boot and duster were half out. She stuffed them back in with her foot. "You can come in now!"

Her mother, a Siamese-Abyssinian mix, entered the room, looking very puzzled. "What was that yelp for, Cake Batter? Are you alright?" She came over, her skinny tail swishing behind her as she examined her child, taking her cheeks into her paws. "You look tired."

"Mom, I wish you'd stop calling me Cake Batter. It's not chic." Cortana pouted; she wasn't a child anymore.

Her mother smiled, "But you're the sweetest thing I know." She pressed a motherly kiss onto her kitten's forehead, and scooped down to pick up her messenger bag and coat from the floor, handing it to her. "Now, I made you some breakfast-to-go downstairs and a few extra dollars in case you didn't want to come home for lunch. Be good, don't bother your father too much while he's on the job, and be SAFE." She stressed the last part.

Cortana sighed, and hugged her mom, before sauntering out of the room, trying to keep her posture to hide her limp.

As soon as she heard the front door close, her mother August opened the door to her closet, and looked at the thief outfit. She sighed heavily. Taking the outfit into her paws, she sat on her daughter's bed, frowning. "Oh, Cortana Brea, you take after your mother quite well, hm?"

***

"You are LATE!" Carmelita shrieked at the teeny-bopping fashion queen while she strolled into her office, music blaring in the feline's ears. "You are 5 1/2 minutes late, do you know how that would look to your commanding officer? You could lose your job! Are you even listening to me?!"

The vixen decided that today, she would be all out straight up with the nonchalant intern, no matter if her father was the Lt. of the Venice branch of Interpol. If she wanted to be a real police officer some day, she had to start being hard with her right now. But in actuality, she just wanted to vent her rage out. She didn't like the young feline anyway, especially when she told her she'd never find a husband or boyfriend. She doesn't have time for that as long as Sly Cooper was on the loose.

She continued shouting, "You're so concerned with what matches with your shoes or your new bag or coat, this isn't a fashion show! This is a police department! We are Interpol! We're an agency that captures international criminals! Do you know how serious this business is?"

Cortana popped out her earphones while her superior shouted, and raised a paw up to her, prompting Carmelita to stop in surprise mid-sentence. "Look, fox," She started, emphasizing 'fox' derogatorily. "I am in absolutely no mood to deal with this crap today." The ragdoll cat gave the vixen a deadpan expression. "I hurt my leg, and I don't have any aspirin, so please. Make it easier for us both, and stop being Ironsides for a day."

Carmelita goggled, still gawking at the back of the cat's head as she walked off to do her daily routine of collecting forms for her to review and sign. The Inspector just could not win today. She flopped down into her office seat, and dropped her head onto the desk. She lost both Sly Cooper and the new thief, she got chewed out by Lt. Harlow, and she got chewed out again by his teeny-bopping, fashion queen, fast-mouthed mop of a daughter.

It was just her luck.