"~~/~~/~~
Tonight I made away with a golden Aztec mask that I have had my eyes on for weeks. Tyga had let me get away with it this time, but next time, he warned, he would try his best to catch me. But, he seemed to change his mind real quick when I went to see him the next morning and told him the news.
I am pregnant.
Bill was ecstatic. This would mean that I would have to take a break for a while. With me pregnant with my first child, I also had to finally make plans about things that were to possibly come. Such as, if I passed away unexpectedly. What would happen to my child then? Of course, Bill had mentioned that I make Tyga the Godfather of my child, so that, because Tyga was in the Police Force, he or she would be safe from my enemies. When I said something to Tyga about it, he told me that he was honored. I was beyond happy to hear him say that.
As for Cooper, he seemed to be half disappointed and half happy for me. But, it seemed that his current wife was pregnant with his son. She was that far along that they already knew the gender of their baby? I didn't know if I was angry or sad… Probably a bit of both and maybe some happiness for them too… What if, his son and my child could meet one day? Perhaps when he decided to pass down the Thievious Raccoonous to his son… It would be perfect! I will speak to him about it the next I see him…"
I finished reading my mother's diary entry and sighed. By this entry she was pregnant with me. It must have only been a few weeks…
In any case, today I was going to go see Kaylita for the first time in months. I made my way to the Interpol building and stopped at the front desk. The clerk looked up at me and gasped.
"Miss Annika! What a wonderful surprise! We haven't heard from you in months!"
I giggled. "It's good to see you too, Sasha. Kaylita wouldn't happen to be working would she?"
"Of course. Let me buzz her for you. She should be right down."
I thanked Sasha then sat down in one of the benches. I hadn't been sitting down long when Kaylita came down the hall. She ran to me and hugged me.
"Oh Annika! I've missed you so much!" she cried. "How have you been? What brought you back here? Is everything okay in New York?"
I laughed. "One at a time, Kay. I can only do so much."
"Sorry…" She stepped away to compose herself. "So, what brings you back to Paris?"
I took out a file from my bag. She took it then looked inside. She frowned.
"But he's in jail. Why would you give this to me?"
I shook my head. "That's where you're wrong. He's broken out and on a rampage. I was hoping that you could help me."
She looked around the lobby. "Follow me."
We went back to her office and sat down. She sifted through the file.
"What's going on Annika? Tell me everything."
I told her everything that I had told Sly. Him being framed, how Archimedes' arrest led me here, everything that I saw that needed to be explained, I told her.
She sat for a moment, thinking. "We have gotten some reports from the States saying that Sly Cooper had been pulling some heists there but… He's been here the last few months. Had he left, we would've known… Especially with how gung-ho my sister is about him. He wouldn't have so much as sneezed and we not know about it."
"Exactly," I said. "None of the stories match up."
Kaylita nodded. "Carmelita has been noticing too. Luckily she hasn't gone out of her way to try to track him to the U.S. when he's not even there…"
I'm so glad that I had Kaylita on my side. I'm even more glad that it was this easy to convince her. As for Carm, well, I wasn't so sure it would be this easy.
Just then, Carmelita walked into Kaylita's office and put a pile of papers on Kay's desk.
"What's all this?"
"History on that creep Archimedes," Carmelita replied. "I went as far back as I could possibly find. Which, as you can see, is A LOT of history."
She shocked me. "You already knew?"
She shook her head at me. "No. Cooper gave me a few clues to follow. It took me a bit but I put finally put the pieces together."
Of course he did… That jerk…
"Sister," Kaylita said to her, "Have I told you lately how much I love you?"
Carm laughed. "I love you too, Kay." She turned her attention to me. "It's good to see you Annika. How have you been?"
I smiled. "I'm alive. I actually came to warn you about Archimedes but it seems that our favorite thief is way ahead of me on telling you."
"Annika brought us his file from the New York precinct," Kaylita told her. "And since you did all this research, we're able to fill in the blanks in his file."
"Good," Carm said. "We'll get started then. It's too bad that Crim Reeves' file was stolen by the new thief. Otherwise we could finish her file as well."
"How do you mean?" I asked.
Carmelita turned to me with a sad look on her face. "Crim Reeves was murdered. We're not sure by who yet but, I'm almost positive that all this mess will give us the answers."
Murdered? I could've sworn that my mother was…
"I've heard of Crim Reeves," I said without giving away too much. "But I thought she had died by natural causes or a car crash or something."
Kaylita shook her head. "Nope. It turns out, someone had it in for her. Poor Reeves was murdered in cold blood and no one knows what happened to her young daughter. Nothing that we could dig up mentioned anything about what had happened to Scarlett, only a birth certificate. That's the only proof there was that Reeves even had a child, much less any kind of family."
Now that was a juicy bit of information. Had I known sooner that my mother was murdered, I would've tracked down the killer as soon as possible. I reminded myself that revenge wasn't the answer. I came back for a more important reason than that. I came to help them take Archimedes down, even if it killed me.
"I'm sorry to hear it," I said softly.
"Me too," Kaylita said. "It makes me curious as to what happened to little Scarlett. I wonder if she's alive somewhere."
I shrugged and walked toward the door. "You never know. She may be right under our noses and least expected."
I left them at that. I now had more of a reason to take down my nemesis. He killed my mother and now he was going to pay dearly…