Chapter 14
“Like a slave.”
“So you mean there might be a criminal organization behind it.”
One of the agents from the Central Bureau of Investigation already seemed swayed by Raven’s theory.
“Who could be behind it?”
“We’ll only know once we catch the Crow Thief. Anyway…”
Raven turned his gaze to Chase. The insincere smile that had never left Chase’s face was now completely gone. It seemed about time to put an end to the debate.
“This opponent is far harder to read because, unlike ordinary criminals, he seems to have a special background. That’s why even a capable agent like Chase can make mistakes.”
He acted as though consoling the defeated. Raven didn’t miss the brief twitch at the corner of Chase’s lips.
“Thank you for your opinion.”
Chase still couldn’t accept defeat and tried to dismiss Raven’s rebuttal as just another opinion. But the atmosphere in the meeting room was already firmly set on his loss.
The police officers squared their shoulders and wore the smile of the victor. Most of the Central Bureau agents, who were supposed to take Chase’s side, had already been persuaded by Raven’s theory and were lost in thought.
Clap.
Chase clapped his hands to draw everyone’s attention.
“Then let’s wrap up the analysis of the culprit and move on to the capture strategy.”
Since he lost at profiling, now he was trying to seize victory through nitpicking the arrest method.
“For a whole 10 years, the Crow Thief has run rampant! The number of jewels stolen in that time is 102, at least that’s what’s officially known!”
“……”
“As the number of stolen items increased, so did the resentment of the victims and citizens. Particularly, there has been great dissatisfaction with the passive capture strategy.”
Just as Raven had predicted.
“Therefore, it’s time we use more active measures.”
“You mean allowing the use of firearms?”
“As expected, you know exactly what I mean.”
It was the same pressure he had faced countless times before. And once again, Raven refused with the same reasoning he’d given countless times.
“That won’t do. The Crow Thief is a thief, not a robber.”
“Ah, of course.”
Chase exaggeratedly curved his eyes in a knowing smile.
“Because she never harmed anyone, you just let her be…”
Let her be. The implication that Eden City’s police had been negligent in pursuing the thief made their gazes turn sharp and hostile.
“And now, our nation’s dignity and credibility are being damaged in the eyes of the international community.”
When the Heart of Queen Scarlet—a jewel belonging to a foreign royal family—was stolen, the Crow Thief incident escalated into a diplomatic dispute. Raven knew all too well that this made the need for capture even more urgent, but still…
“That’s all the more reason we must not use firearms. If, by chance, the culprit dies, then who will tell us where Queen Scarlet’s Heart is hidden?”
Because of the stolen jewel’s whereabouts, the thief had to be taken alive. This had always been Raven’s strongest argument, but Chase was relentless.
“Then how about deploying a skilled sniper to aim at non-lethal spots…”
“The Lucky Jones incident.”
“……”
Raven brought up the case where that exact tactic had been attempted, only for the target to end up dead on the scene. Chase’s mouth shut at once—but not for long.
“There are also non-lethal bullets.”
“The suspect flies through the air with an umbrella. If she gets hit mid-air, drops the umbrella, and falls—can you guarantee that won’t be lethal?”
“……”
“……”
“In that case…”
Raven fixed his gaze on Chase, who was rambling endlessly without tiring, no matter how many times he was refuted. Chase was persistent by nature, but today he seemed even more so.
Was he simply determined to win, or had higher-ups pressured him to push for a change in strategy?
If it was indeed pressure from above, it would be more advantageous for Raven’s career to bend here. But he hadn’t become a police officer for the sake of promotion.
Raven’s absolute opposition to firearms in cases that weren’t violent crimes came from his conviction.
Because there were villains who could be redeemed.
Just as he himself had been.
And Raven believed the Crow Thief was such a villain—one who could change.
“I’m truly sorry. Please…”
Those were the words the thief supposedly said when she left without stealing jewels from Lady Doris Hunt, and that had only strengthened Raven’s conviction.
“I pray that your son and daughter-in-law may rest peacefully in heaven, and that you and your grandson may overcome the wounds of the past years and find happiness again. I sincerely hope that when the time comes, you can pass down this necklace to your granddaughter-in-law with a joyful smile.”
That thief carried not the heart of a devil, but the heart of a human being.
The more Raven dwelled on those words, the stranger his feelings became. They weren’t persuasion or begging, and yet he had been moved by the sorrow behind them.
‘She’s softer-hearted than she appears.
Come to think of it, even the kick to Raven’s jaw in the museum—it must have been to stop her from falling.
‘Soft-hearted… maybe I should exploit that.’
A bright idea struck Raven.
* * *
—With the appearance of a new hero, could the case of the beautiful phantom thief be entering a new phase?
In the empty Special Investigation Unit headquarters, only the voice from the radio echoed.
—And this new hero is none other than Clive Chase, the pride of the Central Bureau of Investigation, a young agent with an impressive background.
Family, education, past cases solved—the radio host recited Chase’s résumé as though he were the savior destined to deliver Eden City from the calamity known as the Crow Thief.
—It seems the investigation has already taken a new turn with the Central Bureau stepping in.
“Huh?”
—Rumor has it that the Crow Thief belongs to the upper class. Word of this is spreading rapidly throughout Eden City’s high society.
“What nonsense.”
Alone at headquarters, sorting through receipts for security expenses, I snorted.
“They’re still pushing that angle?”
It had already been five days since Chase had been utterly demolished by Hunt, yet he still clung to his faulty hypothesis, poking around Eden City’s aristocracy.
Rumor had it that the upper class had begun to suspect and guard against one another.
The greatest victim was Lady Doris Hunt. She was the only one accused who hadn’t lost a jewel to me—and the one who had a chance to catch me, yet chose not to.
‘Doris Hunt is actually the Crow Thief.’
That was the absurd rumor spreading now.
I glared at the newspaper headline, courtesy of a rag all too eager to fan baseless gossip.
‘The touching tale of the old lady and the beautiful phantom thief—actually a staged play?’
Once they had praised Lady Hunt’s courage to the skies, but now the press turned on her, casting her as a criminal.
As if, when the police net closed in, she had staged the whole affair to deflect suspicion.
Lady Hunt became a hero, the Crow Thief a warm-hearted gentleman thief, and the necklace wasn’t lost—in a single stunt she supposedly caught three birds with one stone.
Such utter trash, written in painstaking detail…
Thud!
I rolled up the newspaper and hurled it into the trash, seething with anger.
I could tolerate rumors about me—I had done things to deserve them. But Lady Hunt? She had committed no crime. Why should she suffer for it?
“Humanity falls harder than stocks—it has no bottom.”
My sigh mixed with the voice of the radio host, still parroting Clive Chase’s false theory.
‘To be honest, though, this angle is more convenient for me.’
Compared to Raven Hunt’s accurate hypothesis, at least.
“The Crow Thief is stealing jewels under someone else’s coercion.”
Absolutely chilling!
“Even while sending advance notices, the culprit went out of his way not to get caught.”
Do you have a bug planted in my head?!
That day, my spine went cold and my heart nearly dropped. Even the legendary Gemma Steel’s nerves weren’t enough in that moment.
‘I might as well write my own confession! Just stick my name at the end!’
The whole time I was scribbling down Hunt’s precise analysis, my hands wouldn’t stop trembling. The meeting notes looked more like a worm farm.
‘Raven Hunt… just what are you?’
He had burst onto the scene like a comet, resolving in an instant the cases that had plagued the Eden City Police for decades. Three years ago, before even turning thirty, he had claimed the title of youngest superintendent and head of the Special Investigation Unit.
‘In short, a genius.’
But before that? Nothing about his past was known.
‘So what on earth did you used to be?’
