Sometimes I'm not angry, I'm hurt, and there's a big difference.

It was no secret that the Panda King was a ruthless, dangerous criminal.

Born penniless, the man had grown up fascinated by fireworks and had spent a decade learning the art, hoping to impress the rich business that set up shops every New Years to sell only the highest quality products. When they had instead proceeded to ridicule him and ruined his already-meager reputation, he and his sister had been forced to relocate halfway across China just to find work under people who did not share the connections with the men that had made a laughing stock out of his work.

"Inspector Fox."

Humiliated, King had eventually returned to take revenge on those who shunned him by using the very tools of his art for crime, destroying both their livelihoods and their lives with his fatal fireworks. The Fiendish Five had recruited him as their demolition's expert within a few short years afterwards, and from then on, his explosive touch became feared worldwide.

"Inspector Fox."

The panda was well-known for returning to his home country after a completed job with his cohorts. His last sighting had been a year and a half ago at the eastern border between China and North Korea. But no one seemed to know where, exactly, he holed up in, and local police provinces were either unhelpful or unwelcoming towards every Interpol effort to find information about him.

If only there was one clue they could get, one tiny piece to jumpstart the puzzle, then –

"FOX!"

Carmelita jolted out of her train of thought to see Inspector Barkley standing in the doorway to her office. His arms were folded impatiently with an unimpressed look on his face, and she hunched up her shoulders in embarrassment as she turned away from the world map on her corkboard wall that was littered with little red pins. A few in Europe, another several in Africa, one or two down the coast of South America.

An entire cluster across the whole of China.

"I'm so sorry, sir. I didn't mean to ignore you. I was just so focused…"

"So I've noticed," he said gruffly, stepping up beside her to study her wall map and the chaos of tacks all over it. "Just wanted to check in and see how things are going. You've been holed up in your office since you've been back."

The fox swallowed. It had been nearly two weeks since the…since she had returned from Wales. She had come back to France out of a blinding need for familiarity and security, but nothing seemed to help calm her scattered thoughts. Staying home felt lonely and unproductive. Working in the office felt crowded and confining. She was stuck in a limbo where all she seemed to think about was the worst day of her life and all she wanted to think about was anything but that.

What made it even worse was that she couldn't fall back on her main case to distract her. With only two members of the Five left to find, no strong leads for one and practically zero information on the other, the inspector had hit a brick wall that left her frustrated on her best days, and nearly depressed on her lowest.

Barkley seemed to have caught on to that last fact, considering he was standing here when she couldn't remember the last time he had sought her out willingly instead of summoning her to his office. He continued to eye the mess across the wall, stroking his mustache almost thoughtfully.

"Finally hit a wall on the Fiendish Five case, hm?"

"Not a permanent one!" She rapidly replied, fighting the urge to fidget like a child scared of disappointing their teacher. "Just…a minor bump in the road. I'll be right back on track soon, I swear."

"Relax, Fox. We're not going to boot you from the case for getting stuck. Considering you've taken down more than half of them in the last month when we had couldn't even manage one in fifteen years, it'd be foolhardy to even entertain the idea."

Guilt made Carmelita's tail curl behind her out of her boss' line of sight. She didn't deserve that praise. Not when she had been unknowingly relying on help and info from a traitorous, heartbreaking criminal.

"I appreciate your faith in me, sir," came her response anyway, because it was what she would've said in any other circumstance. He couldn't know about what she'd done. Who she'd trusted.

The badger grunted, still stroking his mustache, then appeared to come to a decision. He motioned for her to follow him out the door and down the hall. "What you need is a change of pace, I think. Something to keep your mind sharp while you're working through this rut so you can return to the case with a fresh pair of eyes."

"Did you have another case in mind, sir?"

"Not quite." He led her down a set of stairs, down to the floor where they questioned those they had arrested. "Let me ask you – when was the last time you helped out with an interrogation?"

"Since before I started working on the Fiendish Five case."

She was intrigued despite her melancholy; interrogations were usually boring or unfruitful, but she knew how to cast an intimidating presence and it had often yielded results when her coworkers were unsuccessful. It would probably be less likely to make her want to bash her head against the wall, at any rate.

Then they entered the observation room adjacent to the holding pen, and she got a clear look at exactly who she was supposed to be questioning. Sir Raleigh sat in his chair with perfect posture, picking idly at whatever perceived dirt he could find along his cuffed hands. Even from the other side of the one-way mirror, the fox could practically feel his boredom for the situation he'd found himself in.

Barkley started talking about everything they'd tried to make the machinist speak against his still-free cohorts, but all of it went in one ear and out the other as Carmelita stared at the man who had pushed the tiny metaphorical snowball into the cascading mess that was currently wrecking her life. There was not a single part of her that didn't want to go into that room.

"Well, Fox? What do you say? Think you can get your most recent quarry to finally crack?"

What left her mouth was almost automatic. "Of course, sir."

She had no way of saying no without having to explain herself. She didn't want to talk to Raleigh, with every fiber of her being, but even more than that, she absolutely did not want to share any of the events that had transpired from the moment she'd stepped foot onto a certain ransacked street in Mesa City.

Mechanically, distantly, the inspector entered the room. Raleigh didn't even glance up from his fingers.

"I want my phone call," he said, sounding both curt and unconcerned. It was a disturbing talent he had, truly.

Carmelita took a deep breath to steady her nerves as she sat down across from him. "Did someone promise you a phone call?"

The sound of her voice finally got the frog's attention. He looked at her, surprised for all of two seconds before a downright catty grin curled across his visage.

"Well, well, well. To what do I owe the honor to be graced by your presence?"

"I'm here because I've heard you weren't cooperating with our other officers."

"'Cooperate' is an awfully generous term, Inspector. I've merely been exercising my right to general silence and I have been harassed immensely for it."

The grin had stricken fear in her heart, but she forced herself to relax when he didn't act on whatever was obviously going on in his head. So long as he remained indignant about how he was being treated, there was a very good chance she could get through this encounter without him bringing up the elephant in the room.

The raccoon, to be more precise.

"There are standard procedures in place for these interrogations," she said, trying to appear the no-nonsense inspector that she was. "Whatever injustices you believe you have experienced, we will make note of it."

"If I recall, allowing a prisoner at least one phone call is also standard procedure, but no one has given me that courtesy yet. Interpol certainly doesn't practice what it preaches, does it?"

"We'll see about getting you your phone call once our discussion is over. Your cooperation will speed things along."

Raleigh scoffed and folded his arms, looking at her like she was a bug to squish. "Bloody get on with it, then."

"Very well. How long have you been a member of the Fiendish Five?"

"No doubt since you were in diapers, little wench."

She ignored the insult. This was much more familiar territory now. "Can you give me any specific dates? Even just a year?"

"How bizarre. I can't seem to remember. Next question."

"Fine. We'll come back to that one later, then. What kind of technology did you provide for your fellow colleagues?"

"I'm sure you lot have enough neurons to share between yourselves to figure it out from the private residence you ransacked when you assaulted me."

Another jab that was easy to sidestep. The sooner she asked her questions, the sooner she could get out of this room and back to relative safety. Extending their time together by getting riled up was only adding risk to herself.

"Where are the rest of the Fiendish Five located?"

"Do I look like a rat to you?" He sneered. "Why are you even asking me that? Don't you already have a –"

Raleigh broke off suddenly, staring at her in a way that made her fur bristle. He sat back in his chair with a rising smirk.

"Ah. You lost him, didn't you?"

The fox stiffened where she sat, feeling Barkley's eyes through the one-way window. She took a deep breath and put on her best poker face of puzzlement.

"I don't know what you're talking about, but I'd like to stay on topic."

"Of course, you would. Someone like you doesn't want to be reminded of what she let slip through her fingers." How desperately she wanted to wipe that awful grin off his face. "I can't say I blame you for it, though. He's trickier than even I realized. A sly little thing, wouldn't you agree?"

Carmelita's fingers twitched against the table, but the frog didn't acknowledge it beyond a widening of his smile. She prayed to all that was holy that he didn't go any further – that this was just a dig to get under her skin, that he wouldn't expose her secret to her fellow officers.

Her terrible, terrible secret.

Raleigh opened his mouth again and she braced herself for the worst, knowing he was a criminal, knowing he'd relish a chance to throw her under the bus and ruin her reputation, blow her credibility as a detective to smithereens entirely as a form of revenge –

"I'm done answering pointless questions. I want my phone call now. I won't speak to anyone again until I get it."

"...What?" She asked dumbly, thrown completely off balance.

"Phone call, Inspector," the machinist scoffed. All traces of amusement had disappeared under impatience and contempt. "Are you daft? Just as moronic as those other rozzers who were in here earlier? Tell your boss that either I get my call, or you'll be stuck in this pissing contest you're so eager to have forever."

"I'll – I'll see what I can do," came the lame response as Carmelita struggled to comprehend the fact that he wasn't going to expose her deeper involvement with one of his fellow criminals.

Raleigh refused to answer anything else, and sat in irritated silence until the inspector finally gave up and retreated out of the room. Barkley was waiting for her.

"I'll have someone else work on him for a while," he promised, studying his subordinate as she ran a stressed hand through her hair. "He's probably more likely to cooperate with someone who didn't have a hand in bringing him in."

"Right," she murmured, staring out the one-sided window at the criminal who was still sulkily lounging in his chair.

"Raleigh seems to think you had another Fiendish Five member within your grasp, though," the badger pointed out. "Know how he reached that conclusion?"

"I…I thought I had a decent lead on Clockwerk." The lie rolled off her tongue so smoothly. She hated herself for it. "I had found something in the boathouse that seemed connected to him. Raleigh saw me with it when we were fighting. It turned out to be a...waste of time."

That last part was true, at least, but her gut still twisted into a pretzel as her boss accepted the story without question. He stroked his mustache in thought.

"Maybe that's not such a bad idea – looking into Clockwerk until you get over that wall you've hit on the Panda King's case, I mean. How much have you delved into on him?"

"Not much," Carmelita admitted. "I read his file along with the rest when you first sent them to me, but there wasn't much to go on. I haven't touched it since."

Barkley exhaled harshly through his nose. "He's definitely the most elusive member. We were damn lucky to even get photos, and those are barely identifying at all."

A traitorous thought drifted across her skull; wondering if Sly had ever seen their leader in person. Would he have described him if she'd asked? Her jaw clenched tight as she rubbed her eyes in an attempt to banish him from her mind yet again.

"I'll keep you posted on any new progress I make," she said, trying and failing to sound less exhausted than she felt.

"Good. And I'll let you know if anything changes here."

The two of them looked through the window. Neither had particularly high hopes.

"Keep up the good work, Fox," he dismissed her with a wave of his hand.

"Thank you, sir."

The walk back to her office felt twice as long as the walk away from it. Every time the inspector passed a coworker by, she could feel the respect and recognition in all of their gazes – things that had been in short supply before she had taken on her most recent case. Instead of feeling happy and welcome, all she wanted to do was shy away in shame, knowing that it had been earned through a farce. Secluding herself from those looks did little to help, but she did it anyway.

Carmelita collapsed in her desk chair and put her face in her hands. No matter what she said or did, thoughts about Sly – Cooper – kept coming back to her like weeds rooted in her brain. She bared her teeth, pressing her fingers harshly against her temples, and warred with her broken heart to please, please focus on anything else.

But no matter how hard she tried not to, the picture of Sly's face and the sound of his voice was stark in her mind. Teasing her for her struggles on a mission; getting infuriatingly quiet when he felt like being obtuse to her questions; sending biting words her way that got her blood pumping with the urge to bite right back and prove him wrong.

The way he'd screamed her name when she was nearly crushed by Raleigh.

The inspector shook her head, trying to clear it all away, but it warped into other memories instead. The way he had listened to her stories on their long plane rides. His laughter growing less and less reserved every time she was actually able to make him laugh. That night on the roof together when he had admitted he trusted her; wanted to continue trusting her.

Empty eyes and cold, hard metal against her throat.

She growled and stood up so abruptly that her chair nearly toppled. Enough distractions – there was work to be done, locations to find, and criminals to catch. If she couldn't banish the thief from her mind, then she'd just push him to the side to deal with later. The fox went back to her corkboard, pretending that there was a detail there she hadn't already scoured ten times over.

It didn't work.

Records were kept in the building's basement.

Inspector Fox made her way down there the very next day, moving with a purpose she didn't actually feel after another wasted day of not finding a lead on the Panda King. She had told herself that having a physical copy of information to study would be more stimulating than staring at a computer screen any longer, and she kept that thought firmly in mind as she plucked King's file from the appropriate cabinet and then made a beeline for another.

Down an aisle or two, she found the cabinet with the "C" listing, and from there it was short work to find Clockwerk's remarkably thin folder. The fox pulled it out, started to close the drawer, then stopped. Considered.

There was no point trying to be sneaky when there were cameras mounted everywhere. Even so, Carmelita couldn't help glancing both ways down the aisle to make sure she was alone as her hand slid past "Cl" and into "Co".

Cooper, Conner.

She pulled the file out carefully, afraid to spill its contents. It was far heftier than Clockwerk's, she noticed – and then wondered why she was comparing them. They had nothing to do with each other. There was no connection between the Fiendish Five and the master thief.

Except for one young raccoon who wouldn't stop plaguing her.

It felt like she was stealing something priceless as the fox hurried back to her office with Cooper's folder tucked under her arm, hidden from sight under Clockwerk's. The moment her door was shut safely behind her, she rushed to her desk to flip through it.

Page after page of Cooper's countless heists, robberies, and suspected crimes were laid out before her. The man was a legend in his time with barely more than a glimpse caught of him by the many detectives who had chased him for nearly twenty years. They hadn't even been certain that the male raccoon found in the massacre of that couple in the U.S. had actually been him until his DNA came back a match from one of his earliest heists. It was the first time they'd ever seen his face.

Carmelita let out a quiet noise as she found the police report on Conner's death. She had studied it as well as the criminal himself during her time at the academy, but it had been a required subject that had only delved into his criminal escapades. His murder had been a footnote at best, and there had certainly never any mention of him having children.

She slipped her reading glasses onto her face and began looking.

At 8:36 PM local time, a police dispatch had received a call about a domestic disturbance. Two officers had arrived at the scene ten minutes later and discovered the bodies of Conner Cooper and his presumed-spouse, Charlotte James-Cooper. Charlotte had been found in the dining room with three bullet wounds across her body. Conner had been found in the living room with severe chest trauma.

Manner of death: Homicide
Perpetrators: Unknown

There were pictures tucked under the page. Carmelita pulled them out – and immediately regretted it. She had never actually seen the photos of the infamous scene, and even though she was no stranger to the often-graphic aftermath of crime, these were…particularly brutal.

"Severe chest trauma" was an understatement. The man had had his chest ripped open from sternum to hip. She'd have those images stuck in her head for weeks.

Swallowing hard, the inspector put them back and started skimming through the rest of the documents. Autopsy reports, police and witness accounts, press conference transcripts – but nothing about a child found or rescued or even reported. No mention of relatives or other known family that had been contacted after death, either.

That last one had been unlikely, anyway. The only attachments the master thief had ever been known to have were his fellow Cooper gang members, and one of them had turned himself in as soon as news of the murders had been made public. Briefly, Carmelita considered the idea of interviewing Jim McSweeney to find out if he knew of any other Cooper relatives, then nixed it immediately. She highly doubted that Conner, secretive and cautious as he was famous for, would have let his fellow criminals near any potential children he might have had.

Not to mention, the walrus had no affiliation with the Fiendish Five. Barkley would want to know why she was pursuing a completely unrelated case when her hands were already full with this one, and she didn't want him asking questions she didn't know – or want – to answer.

Not until she had a better understanding of just how Cooper's supposed son had started working for one of the most notorious criminal gangs of the last century, barely out of his teens.

More photos of the crime scene, thankfully with less violent imagery. The fox thumbed through them one by one, noting the ransacked rooms and particularly the open wall safe in the living room, so reminiscent of the state of Muggshot's office way back when. It wasn't anything more than a coincidence – certainly not enough to prove a connection between the bulldog or his associates with Conner Cooper's death. Honestly, there wasn't even really proof that Sly was who he'd said he was. Doppelgangers had popped up for years after the master thief's death; a tribute by some criminals who had admired Cooper, and an attempt to ride the infamy of his name by others. He could have simply lied about his heritage to get into the Five's good graces and happened to have enough talent to back it up until he no longer could.

Maybe that was why he had suddenly wanted to get out.

Now that she thought about it, she couldn't even be sure that the cane Sly had used was the real deal. It had felt like the real deal when it had been looped around her neck, but it could have easily been custom-made. Nothing to suggest it was actually Conner Cooper's original cane, despite the thing still being missing to this day.

Something caught her eye in the wide shot of the living room. Carmelita squinted at the photo, noticing for the first time that there were several broken picture frames littered about the floor. The details were too tiny to make out, but the shapes in them picked at the detective instincts in her mind.

She started flipping through the rest of the photos, grateful for the evidence team's thoroughness when she found one that showed a close-up of those frames and the contents within them. Most were, bizarrely enough, pictures of previous Coopers who had also been famous for their thieving exploits – Tennessee Kid Cooper and Thaddeus Winslow Cooper III were two she immediately recognized, among others.

But they weren't the ones that had grabbed her attention. That belonged to a single photo that must have been ripped off the wall incredibly violently, because its frame was broken and there was a huge, jagged crack in the glass right down the middle. Even then, she could still make out what that picture was.

Conner Cooper on the left, his wife on the right. Both were cut off above the shoulders because they were not the focus of the image. The focus of the image was a grinning child holding a balloon between them who barely even reached their hips in height.

Even ten years younger, she'd recognize Sly's face anywhere.

Carmelita fell back in her chair, clutching this photo of a photo that held the proof she had been looking for. There had been a child. Cooper had had a child, and it had been Sly. What had happened to him after the homicide? How had he started working with one of the most infamous criminal syndicates of the modern age without first making a name for himself elsewhere?

And why wasn't there a mention of his existence in any of these reports? Surely, a new descendant of the Cooper line would have been a very big deal regardless of whether he had survived the massacre that claimed the rest of his family.

She stared at that picture for a long time, mind whirring as she tried to make sense of it all. Something wasn't quite adding up no matter what angle she tried, and it was frustrating her that she didn't have anything else to go on. If she just had a little more information, she'd be able to piece it all together. She was sure of that.

The inspector glanced at the door. Then she glanced up at her corkboard, littered with sticky notes and pins and question marks about the two remaining Fiendish Five. She found herself wishing her partner was with her to help find them, then immediately banished the thought from her head. He hadn't been helping her at all. He'd been playing her. He'd probably known where every single one of them had been and was just stringing her along to make her feel like she'd figured things out herself.

Well, she could figure those things out all by herself from now on. She didn't need him anymore or ever again.

But maybe a quick detour to solve a smaller mystery first wouldn't hurt.

Armed with Conner's file, Carmelita left her office and walked with purpose across the hall and down a floor, where most of the employees stationed here were more office workers than actual investigators. There was one person she was looking for in particular, one she'd never sought out of her own free will before, and it took a minute to find his name on his office door.

She gave three rapid knocks.

"Come in!"

And entered immediately with no further fanfare.

"Winthorp, is this all there is in the Conner Cooper case?"

The otter looked up from his laptop just in time to watch her lay the heavy file on his desk. He opened his mouth as if to greet her, then saw the no-nonsense look on her face and seemed to realize she wasn't in the mood for small talk. Instead, he glanced back down at the case.

"Which part of it?"

She opened it to the section about the master thief's death, swiping a photo of the destroyed living room and waving it in front of his snout. "This part. The homicide and robbery. Were there ever any other reports or notes made about it beyond what's here?"

"Uh…" The poor man was clearly struggling to catch up. He scanned what was in front of him as quickly as he could, but Carmelita still fought the urge to cross her arms or tap her foot in impatience. "I can check. Give me just a few minutes."

He began typing rapidly at his keyboard while the fox waited with bated breath. She almost hoped he didn't find anything new; that the revelation she found herself on the cusp of wasn't truly there.

"Looking into a few cold cases, huh? That's a great idea! I've heard a lot of detectives say it helps them break out of the slump they're struggling with in their main cases – not that you're in a slump, ma'am! I'd never say that, absolutely not…"

Carmelita was so caught up in her own thoughts that it took her far too long to realize he was talking. She shifted her weight and finally did fold her arms, more out of awkwardness than anything else.

"Yeah, I, um…needed a break from the Fiendish Five case for a bit."

"Oh, I completely understand!" He chirped, very clearly not understanding at all while he obliviously typed away. "It must be awful having to go after such horrible people. I've been reading up on them lately – not for, uh, any particular reason – and just hearing about the terrible crimes they've committed was enough to make my stomach turn. You're the strongest person I've ever – huh."

His awed rambling cut off in a distinct noise of confusion, breaking her out of her rising exasperation. The fox zeroed in on the pinched, bemused expression suddenly on his face.

"What? Did you find something?"

"…Yes?" Winthorp answered tentatively. "Or…I guess, no? I'm not really sure."

Frowning, she walked around his desk so that she could see what had him so stumped. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary; in fact, it looked like the exact same information that was in the physical file.

"Walk me through what you're seeing," she said, knowing that he would fill in the blanks she couldn't even find.

"Well, I noticed when I first pulled up the report that the Interpol officer assigned to the case was Francine Pennington. She retired a few years ago, but she was a really amazing detective when she was here for like, twenty years."

"I know; she tutored a class I once had about the importance of detailed record-keeping."

"Okay! So then, you probably know how she liked to make her own personal entries about every case she was assigned to, regardless of whether she solved it or not."

Carmelita didn't actually know that, but she didn't question it. If there was anyone in the entire department who could recognize the difference in paperwork between individual officers, it was Winthorp. The guy practically lived in Records.

"I can see here that every time she encountered Conner Cooper or reported a successful heist he did, she left an additional side report – usually rehashing what she'd already formally said but with her personal thoughts and questions as well."

"She added her own case notes to the official records?"

"Pretty much! Since she was usually the only detective assigned to the cases she worked on, it probably left an easy way to pick things back up whenever she returned to them."

"As fascinating as this is, Winthorp, I'd really like to know where you're going with it."

"Her personal report about the night of Conner Cooper's death is missing."

That pulled the inspector up short. "What do you mean? She just didn't write one?"

"I mean that it's completely gone." He gestured to some small detail on his screen that she couldn't decipher. "It used to be in our system, I can see the submission date for it along with everything else right here, but it's just…not there anymore."

"Was it moved? Deleted?"

The otter bit his lip and began pecking at his keyboard. His frown grew more and more pronounced until finally he leaned back with a sigh and a shake of his head. "I don't know. Whoever messed with it knew how to cover their tracks. I'm not a tech guy, unfortunately."

Someone had tampered with Interpol evidence. The weight of that knowledge hung heavily in the air between them. Carmelita restlessly drummed her fingers against the Clockwerk case file she was still holding, disturbed and struggling to make sense of it.

Was Sly mentioned in that report? She wondered. Did he find a way to have it erased to make it easier to move around the world unnoticed?

"Could you do me a favor, Winthorp?" She asked. "Do you think you could find that missing report for me, or at least see if there's a copy of it? I'm, um, really curious as to why it's disappeared."

"You and me both," he replied in a surprisingly candid mutter. "I'll see what I can do, Inspector. If I do find it, what's the best way to contact you?"

The fox hesitated, then decided that the pros outweighed the cons. "I'll give you my number."

To his credit, he didn't get weird about it – although it might've just been because his snout was practically touching his computer screen with how absorbed in this new conundrum he was. "Thanks. I'll let you know as soon as I find it."

"…Sounds good."

As soon as she left Winthorp's office with Conner Cooper's file back in her arms, Carmelita looked up and down the hall before slowly pulling out her phone. She opened her contacts and scrolled down until a recent, damning name stared back at her.

She'd saved Sly's number after the first time he'd finally called her, right before everything had gone to shit. It had burned in the back of her mind for two weeks, but she hadn't dared do anything with it. She couldn't; she didn't know how or have the equipment to track a phone, and asking someone who did would only lead to questions that she was still afraid to answer. But she hadn't deleted it, either, for reasons she knew were there but didn't dare think about.

He'd probably ditched his phone at the Isle of Wrath, anyway. All she was setting herself up for was more devastation.

But she didn't delete the number. Instead, she pocketed her cellphone and started walking almost aimlessly as her thoughts whirled over everything she had just learned.

So caught up in her thoughts, the fox turned a corner and nearly ran right into Inspector Barkley. He raised an eyebrow at the no-doubt haggard look on her face, but something more pressing seemed to be on his mind.

"Oh, there you are. I was just looking for you."

"Is something wrong, sir?"

"No, but we're about to let Raleigh have his phone call. I thought maybe you'd like to witness it in person in case it gives a new clue to your case."

She subconsciously tucked the Cooper file a little closer under her arm even though its title wasn't visible. "I definitely want to be there. Is it happening right now?"

"Just about. We'll have to hurry if you don't want to watch a video recording later."

They wasted no time returning to the interrogation room, where another officer could be seen through the one-way mirror letting Raleigh know that his call could be recorded or traced. The frog looked just as bored as ever, but Carmelita could see the way his fingers tapped impatiently against each other, the only tell to his eagerness.

She leaned up as close to the glass as she dared, watching every minute detail in the criminal's body language as he was finally handed a cellphone. He turned it over in his hands for a moment, studying it, and then proceeded to dial a number so quickly that she couldn't even catch the area code.

He put the phone up to his ear and waited.

The call had been set up to play in the adjacent room so that the observing officers could hear everything that was said on either end of the line. Both fox and badger waited with bated breath as it began to ring.

After almost half a minute, just when they thought there'd be no answer, someone finally picked up. There was no greeting from the other side; not a single sound could be heard at all.

Raleigh was not unnerved by this. He cleared his throat loudly, staring directly at the one-way mirror as though he knew exactly where Carmelita was hiding behind it.

"He's all yours."

Then he promptly hung up and laid the cellphone on the table.

No one moved at first, collectively confused at the cryptic message and such a short interaction for someone who had been demanding a call for two weeks. Raleigh kept his eyes locked on the mirror, gaze leering and knowing, and the inspector resisted the irrational urge to retreat from the window.

"That was…anticlimactic," Barkley muttered next to her, sounding just as baffled as she felt. "Did that phrase mean anything to you?"

She shook her head, unable to turn away from the machinist's piercing eyes.

"Hmm. Alright, well, I suppose you're dismissed?"

It was a rare moment for her boss to be so perturbed, but she didn't find any hilarity to it. With a final nod in his direction, almost afraid to turn her back to the other room, Carmelita pressed the Cooper case file close to her chest and began trudging back towards her office, turning the bizarre scenario over and over in her mind.

You're missing something. C'mon, Inspector, it's all right there in plain sight. I know you can put it all together.

The voice in her head sounded infuriatingly like Sly, which derailed her inner deliberating and scattered all potential connections to the wind. Suddenly angry at him for dominating her thoughts, again, and at herself for letting it happen, again, the fox stomped back to her office, slammed the door closed, and practically flung the case files onto her desk before whirling on her stupid corkboard.

Sly's voice mocked her for being a terrible detective as she tore down every pin, every flag, and every interconnecting red string in a blind rage. Every time she was about to put the pieces together, every time she was close to making a breakthrough, he just had to worm his way back into her brain and destroy her progress. She was just – so – sick of it!

Her fingers curled around an entire cluster of pins stuck into the east side of China, venomously ripping them out and throwing them to the ground in pure, furious spite. It left a large empty space of map in its wake, revealing cities and marked landmarks that had been buried for weeks. Carmelita reached forward, ready to tear out another handful, when two words jumped out at her.

Kunlun Mountains.

The inspector froze, staring at that name.

"I lived in Kunlun as a kid for a while."

Something clicked into place for the first time since she'd had her heart ripped out in Wales, and the fox let out a bitter laugh. Of course, he was still leading her on. Of course, he'd found a way to subtly push her towards his next planned destination. Even in the aftermath of his panic, he'd been trying to manipulate her into doing what he wanted.

Whether it was true that the raccoon had actually grown up in Kunlun didn't matter; what mattered now was that she finally, finally had a lead on her next target, and she was going to run it into the ground until she had her criminal.

And whether that criminal was the Panda King or Sly Cooper didn't matter. A criminal was a criminal, and she was going to show no mercy.

A/N: There's fantastic accompanying art for this chapter that I commissioned from Saikonohero on tumblr - please go check it out since I can't share it on !

I know it's a day late from what I promised but I was very tired last night and I'd rather delay a chapter to ensure its quality than churn out a sleep-deprived mess.

The conspiracy deepens! Carmelita would normally be able to put the pieces together, but she's been dealing with heart-break and guilt so strong that it's been messing with her thinking process a little too much. Hopefully she's not coming off as incompetent, because that's definitely not my intention.

Thanks for reading, and see y'all in a month!