Of Thieves And Do Gooders

Raven’s Point Of View

The mansion was how I had seen it last. Large and quite fancy, aside from the fact that I wasn’t diving through the gate and hiding in the bushes this time. This time I was riding in the extravagant limo as I passed through the black iron bars. It was the strangest thing I had ever experienced, a feeling of déja-vu with a side feeling of anxiety. This must have been how an adopted kid felt when a rich family chose them. You go straight from having nothing to being offered everything.

The limo pulled slowly around the loop around driveway and stopped directly in front of the house. Before I could even attempt to open my door, the chauffeur almost tripped over himself trying to get to my door before I put my hand on the handle. I held my hands up in a defensive position as he yanked the door open and muttered under his breath, “Miss.”

“Thanks,” I said awkwardly, stepping out of the car with a lack of appropriate grace, considering most people who got out of limos were rich and famous, neither of which I happened to be.

I eyed the front door to the mansion like some sort of seductive yet dangerous creature, perhaps my spidey-senses were tingling and I suspected that there was treachery afoot.

…

Too far?

Jack got out of the limo after me, a great amount of grace shown on his part, despite his casual clothing. He stood like he was stepping onto the red carpet, thanked the chauffeur and rose his eyebrows in my direction when he realized I was staring at him. “Something wrong?” he inquired casually and gestured for me to follow him.

We approached the house and I could feel dread creeping up on me quite suddenly.

Jack turned the key in the lock and my stomach contracted. He put the key back into his pocket, my breath quickened. He turned the doorknob, my shoulders stiffened. There was something in this house that I did not want to see. I could feel it.

Jack Crawford pushed the door open lightly and we were met with the empty hallway, black and foreboding. Noticing my discomfort, Jack paused and frowned. “Having second thoughts? If you’re that terrified of the house, I won’t force you to live here,” he offered, flicking on the light.

The hallway was completely empty. Whatever monster I had expected to lurk in the darkness was not present. I heaved a sigh of relief and laughed a little to myself. What was I freaking out about? There was nothing intimidating about the house in the least.

“I’m fine,” I said indignantly, as if I hadn’t just been completely terrified to enter the house before. “Just a little fear of the dark,” I lied with a shrug.

Jack rolled his eyes,.“Right, a little fear,” he scoffed and closed the door behind us once I had decided to step into the house.

“Where’re all the maids and butlers and stuff?” I asked as I examined paintings that lined the walls, most were landscapes, possibly Italian and most definitely expensive.

“They’re gone for the day, they don’t usually stay long,” Jack said simply and beckoned me to him as he continued down the hall at a quicker pace than my own.

“Really? You’re that confident that no one wants to steal from you? Man, confidence is all right, but that’s just plain ignorant,” I joked, snickering as he turned to give me a reproachful look.

“Thank you for your negative input on my lifestyle,” he replied sarcastically and continued to lead me through the hall which led to a large spiral staircase made of marble in the middle of a massive room sculpted in a neat circle with a dome shaped ceiling made of glass. An observatory? Really? That was an odd addition to a house.

“Pretty,” I commented.

“Thank you, I thought it made a nice addition to scenery at night.” Jack smiled at me over his shoulder and started up the staircase.

“Not a good move for safety purposes though, if I was a professional thief I would’ve used a hook and rope to get on the roof, cut through the glass with some silent tool and then I would’ve lowered myself right into the house to steal till my heart’s content,” I said absently, watching the glass ceiling as I continued up the stairs after him.

“You don’t have much of an eye for beauty do you?” Jack asked with humor in his voice.

I shrugged even though he wasn’t looking. “I appreciate logical beauty,” I offered and turned my attention away from the observatory to the hallway we had entered. It had a high ceiling and rounded entries lined with cream-colored pillars as far as the eye could see. As far as I could tell the entire house had a similar build.

Down the hall Jack led me, passing two doors directly across from each other and one at the end of the hall. However, we reached the end of the hall and turned right before Jack came to a stop in front of a white door.

“Here we are,” he said distractedly and pushed the door open to reveal an extravagant room with a queen-size bed right, smack dab in the middle of the plush white carpet. The walls were painted a bold shade of pine green while the trim along the wall was a dark redwood color. I took note of the matching chairs in the room, but decided I wouldn’t be using them often--I had a perfectly good bed to sit on. A mahogany desk was tucked in front of the window complete with paper and pencils scattered across the top. I wouldn’t be touching those either. Where was I Hogwarts? I wasn’t going to be writing letters home and sending them off by owl. To accommodate a teenager’s growing boredom was also a TV complete with Tivo, what looked like a Playstation 3 with a stack of games, and a computer on its own desk set neatly against a wall.

“Nice,” I commented with an approving nod, “If you were trying to impress me into staying here…” I trailed off giving him a bored look. Jack hesitated and I snickered. “It definitely worked,” I finished with a smirk. “Not worried about me leaving were you?” I asked innocently and Jack chuckled.

“Cheeky,” he commented, folding his arms over his chest.

“Thanks, I try.”

“I can tell.”

“Hey, so, is there a particular reason you decided to throw in the game system--not that I’m complaining,” I added when he raised his eyebrows questioningly.

Jack shrugged and leaned against the doorway. “This used to be my son’s room, he switched rooms recently and I decided to leave it since he’s taken a shine to the Xbox 360 as of late,” he explained.

“Wait…you have a son?” I asked, frowning a little. If he had a son to teach all of his thieving tricks to, why bother bringing me into the house to teach instead?

“Yes, you may meet him one day, but he’s been off working diligently to become a lawyer at the moment,” Jack answered, looking thoroughly bored with the turn of the conversation.

I nodded and made a face. “Ew, lawyer? Not interested in stealing then?” I asked, dumping my backpack onto the queen-size bed with a sigh.

Jack smiled thinly. “I wouldn’t say that, however, he sees it as a part time hobby, rather than a real job. Pity really. As I said though, you may meet him, he’s supposed to be visiting for Christmas, but who knows how his plans will turn out?” Jack looked thoughtful for a moment then said, “Speaking of which, I suppose I’ll be needing a few more presents this year, hmm? What sort of things do you like?”

I hesitated, completely thrown by the question. “What? Ah, no, don’t worry about it. I don’t need anything, I mean, you’re already letting me live in your crazy house. I’ll be fine with what I’ve got.” I gestured to the bag on my bed.

Jack shrugged and strode over to me to hand me my duffle bag, “If you say so,” he sounded unconvinced and I didn’t trust him not to buy me something anyway.

I watched him suspiciously and he laughed, “Really Raven, I won’t buy you anything if you don’t want me to.”

I still didn’t believe him, I decided to stretch my own lying capabilities, “Alright, if you say so, then I’ll believe you. Now I don’t have to do some last minute shopping of my own,” I said casually and stretched out lazily on my bed. A question abruptly popped into my head and I sat up, looking at Jack a little sharply, “Hey, is that…” I trailed off, remembering that I should be more tactful and changed my sentence, “Is your wife still around?”

Jack Crawford smirked at the question, although I hadn’t meant for it to be funny. “No, we’re currently going through a divorce process, she’s staying with her mother. I must say, she overreacted completely to finding all of her accounts drained,” he pretended to look bewildered.

I laughed, then asked, “But if you drained her accounts, doesn’t she just get half of your money plus half of the money that was hers?” I cocked my head to the side, “I would have thought you would have thought that one through a bit more.”

“Dear Raven, you give me far too little credit,” Jack said dramatically and smiled at me. “As I told you before, I knew of my wife’s accounts, therefore, I took the liberty of making accounts of my own in Switzerland, of which she can’t touch. My ex-wife gets part of my ‘physical wealth’, as I call it.”

“‘Physical wealth’?” I repeated with a raised eyebrow. What did that mean?

Jack had a glint in his eyes and smiled at me. “An explanation for another time,” he strode over to the door and added, “I’ll give you a tour of the house tomorrow.” Jack Crawford told me, “Feel free to wander if you want, but please, if a door’s locked, refrain from opening it. Lock picks or not.” With that said, Jack disappeared and left me to admire my room further.

However, I didn’t dwell on my room long. I took the necklace from around my neck and ran my fingers over the smooth stone back of it as I thought. From what I could see the house wouldn’t be bad to stay in, but I would still have to keep an eye on Jack Crawford. He lied much too comfortably for me to trust him so easily. I wasn’t sure what his trick was, but I couldn’t trust a rich guy as far as I could throw him, so a smart rich guy? That was three times less trust that he would get from me.

Absently, my thumbnail caught on something on the back of my necklace. I jumped as a blue light emitted from the stone and poured over my face.

The necklace fell absently from my fingertips as I stared at the blue light. Why was it glowing now? I picked it back up quickly, and flipped it over in my fingers, scanning the back rapidly from the afternoon light shining through the window. A smile curled onto my lips as I saw the small catch that my thumbnail had found, it was a flat, rubbery black button sunken into the stone, it was a wonder I hadn’t found it before.

I laughed suddenly and pushed the button again, this time on purpose and the blue light disappeared. I pushed it again and the light came on. I turned it on and off a few times, still laughing, now a little hysterically as I fell onto my back on the queen-size bed. It had glowed the first time because I had accidentally hit the button. God I’m dumb. I laughed a little longer as I fiddled with the new found button. The mystery of my glowing necklace had finally been solved, and it was the stupidest answer I could have ever imagined to find.

My mirth subsiding, I slipped the necklace back over my head, still fiddling with the back of it absently. I decided I would tour the house on my own. Granted I wouldn’t go in any locked doors, as requested--I was a guest after all, why break rules so quickly? I had all the time in the world to break rules while he was off working, or doing what ever it was that he did.

I opened the door to my new room and stepped into the hallway to explore. With a simple stroll down the direction we had come from, I found a bathroom on one side of my bathroom, in accompany to my own personal bathroom in my room. As I made my way toward the stairs again I found the door that had been across from each other, one was a billiard room, complete with a pool table and bar, while the other was a library with far too many windows. I thought of exploring the downstairs, but decided against it, I would check that out some other time.

So, I turned myself around and passed my bedroom, following the hallway until I came to a door at the end of it and a hallway that took me deeper into the house and to the left. I turned the doorknob and frowned. My first locked door. How annoying. I pulled my hand away with a sigh and took the left hallway, which led straight for a short while before hanging left. Down this hallway was a smaller hallway which led to the right and had a single door at the end of it. It practically screamed “locked door”, but I approached it anyway, put my hand on the doorknob and attempted to turn it. As expected, it was locked. I scowled and turned to continue down the hallway.

As I walked I realized I had reached the end of the top floor, nothing at the end of the hall besides a single door. Probably locked, I thought with a grimace and decided to try to open it anyway. As they say, third time’s the charm. I approached the door and turned the doorknob. I smiled a little to myself when it opened with a satisfying click. I pushed the door open curiously and realized it was bed room. A little depressing.
I pushed the door open further, but didn’t enter it. It looked like someone had been in it recently, but only briefly. The sheets were tussled and some bags had been left on the floor, overflowing with partially unpacked clothes. Was his son already here? How odd that he wouldn’t notice when he had arrived. Also, how odd that he wouldn’t be in his room.

I closed the door tentatively, repressing the urge to snoop through his things. I had to wonder what I could learn about people from possessions alone. No! No breaking rules yet, I had to play the good little house guest for the moment. Why arouse suspicion on the first day? When I was probably already under suspicion as it was? Hell, if I wasn’t under suspicion, I had given the guy too much credit the first time I had met him.

I started down the rest of the hallway, back in the direction I had come from and passed my bedroom, not even considering going back into it. There was nothing interesting about the room really, other than the fact that I would be sleeping in it. I peered out the nearest window in the hallway and saw that the mansion had quite a bit of acreage behind it. There were no gardens though, no livestock that I could see, not a hint of a tennis court. Interesting. A rich guy who didn’t enjoy things that made him look like a normal human being. Sports for example. Most rich people enjoyed diluting themselves into believing they liked riding horses because the animals were “magnificent”, however, I believed that they just enjoyed whipping the poor creature to make it run faster.

That’s just my theory though, coming from a bitter poor thief that thrives off of sour old rich people…I guess you could call me a little biased.

There was a built in pool however, which was an upside for when summer came around--if I planned on staying that long, that is. I frowned to myself, I was getting a little too carried away there. I needed to think logically about where I wanted to go with this place. The problem was, I couldn’t make my decision based on what I already knew, I needed to stick around a bit longer and find out more about Jack Crawford.

I blinked suddenly when I saw someone moved down in the yard, someone carrying a shovel and headed toward the back of the house…well if that didn’t scream murder, I wasn’t sure what did. I popped the window open and eyed the tree that was directly across from it, then I hoisted myself up on the windowsill, reached my foot out to test my weight on the branch and hopped swiftly over. The branch shook a little and I hurried to the center of the tree where the branch was thicker.

Once stable, I climbed down the tree and hurtled myself onto the ground when I ran out of branches, it was only a two foot drop, or so, so it wasn’t too terrible, I wasn’t about to break my leg or anything. Quickly but silently, I followed after the man with the shovel and peered around the corner of the house. I smiled a little to myself, I was already trying to find something interesting to do, so I kept my eyes peeled for murder mysteries? I knew I shouldn’t have stayed up watching that Criminal Minds marathon.

The man with the shovel was…

Gone?

I stepped out from behind the wall with a frown. He didn’t look like he had been a fast walker, so how could he have lost me already? I took a few steps forward and yelped when someone shouted, “Stop!” I whirled around to face the guy who had shouted, feeling as if I had been caught red handed.

However, I relaxed instantly when I remembered that I was supposed to be living there now, I didn’t need to skulk around. Which isn’t what I had been doing anyway…I was just stalking some guy with a shovel.

“What?” I asked innocently when I realized that it had been the guy with the shovel who had spoken--Where the hell had he even come from?

The guy stopped in front of me, and I examined him quickly, stuffing him into a mental profile: short black hair, pointed chin, beak-like nose, tall and thin, roughly thirty years old.

“You should be more careful,” the man informed me, gesturing to the place where I had been about to walk, “We’re doing a little work on some pipes over here.”

I glanced at where he had gestured to and my eyes widened. There had been a hole that was roughly five feet wide and five feet deep, of which I had almost walked right into.
“Sort of an inconvenient place for a hole of death,” I commented dryly, squatting down so that I could see the bottom--there weren’t any pipes that I could see.

The thin man smiled slightly. “I just work where I’m told…Say…I don’t think I’ve seen you around here before,” he commented, trying not to sound suspicious and failing.

“I’m a new addition to the house, sort of like a new couch in a living room,” I replied with a shrug, now finished with the “hole of death” as I had so delicately put it. “Except you can’t sit on me,” I added with a smirk.

The man nodded absently. “I see, Mr. Crawford didn’t say anything, but that isn’t new, he has several clients coming and going. It isn’t like the staff needs to know everything,” he said, shrugging and shoving his shovel into the dirt in front of me, startling me slightly, although I didn’t allow it to show. “You have a good day Ma’am,” he told me with a nod and then turned to leave.

What a weird guy. Too nonchalant and polite, I decided, eyeing the hole for another moment before I turned to leave, now thoroughly bored again. My murder mystery had been torn away from me to be replaced with drippy pipes, and thus, lost my interest entirely. How could living at this giant house with a guy who was going to teach me how to steal be so horribly boring? It definitely wasn’t a boring situation…but…

What if Jack’s son was hot? That would definitely be a good incentive to stay. I smiled to myself, interesting myself with the thought alone as I walked. Me, falling in love with some super hot boy a few years older than me that would inherit a butt-load of money when his dad kicked the bucket, had no interest in stealing and was planning on being a lawyer…

Nah. Couldn’t happen.

I frowned to myself, now rounding to the front of the house, I had already put myself off. How depressing. I really had a lack of imagination sometimes.

As I continued to be disappointed with my lack of imagination, I walked back to the house at a lazy pace, entering through the front door--which was unlocked. And, with a lack of something to do, I headed up through the observatory to the hallway that led to my room, where I--sadly--spent the remainder of my day playing Guitar Hero for far too long.

I had just nailed a difficult string of hammer-ons when there was a soft knock on the door. “Come in!” I shouted and swore profusely as twelve notes zoomed past me.

“Dinner,” a guy’s voice lazily drifted into the room.

I turned my head sharply when I realized that it hadn’t been Jack who had spoken, however, whoever the voice had belonged to had already ducked out of the room, closing the door. I swore again when I noticed that my score had begun to plummet. With a sigh of annoyance, I dropped my plastic guitar onto my bed in defeat and rose to exit the room. I stepped over my discarded shoes and eyed my purple toe socks with silent envy of myself--how could one person have both a nice house to live in and nice purple toe socks? I really was living the high life.

I padded down the hallway, remaining completely silent on instinct alone as I headed down the stairs and into the observatory. I paused on the topmost stair and gazed up imploringly at the stars, willing them to do something interesting, but they just sat up in the sky and glimmered lazily. Tch, uninteresting bastards. You don’t have parents! I mocked silently and continued through the observatory and took a left when I reached the bottom of the staircase. I pushed open the door that led directly into the dining room and instantly saw Jack Crawford at the head of the table, sitting in the same attire he had been in earlier that day.

As I entered the room, I slumped forward a bit, eyes half-shut and my hands stuffed into my pockets, making my best effort to seem the epitome of boredom. I felt like making Jack just a tad bit guilty for leaving me with nothing to do, however, it was also an experiment--how easily could I get Jack to bend to my will. On the other hand, he also might see through my guise within moments. Hence why it was an experiment.

A moment later, I found that Jack wasn’t the only one sitting at the dining table and I paused when I came closer to the table. He had his back turned to me, his torso twisted as he sat and stared at the door that led into the kitchen. I could see that he had blond hair and it was fairly short, but messy at best. From what I could tell, he was wearing normal clothes--a pair of dark blue jeans and an expensive looking shirt, that held the Affliction logo across the back. And then he turned around, noticing that Jack had stopped speaking mid-sentence to smile at me.

A chill ran down my spine, and for a moment, I thought I was going to hurl. My eyes widened and I could feel my heart rate pick up, my pulse pounding through my head. Very suddenly, I recognized the boy and every muscle in my body felt like it should have been tensing: Hayden.