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To Catch a Thief
Chapter 3 – the blue-eyed stranger
"I still don't think this is such a good idea," Joey mumbled nervously as he fiddled with his tie. He pulled the strings tighter, causing the bow to look like one big knot.
"Here, let me do it," Chandler said, undoing the tie and retying it. "Tonight is going to be fine. Just remember who you are going as."
"Lord Tribbiani of Kentucky," Joey stated, rolling his eyes, "I feel like an idiot. I'm pretty sure there are no lords in Kentucky."
"Those dorks won't care about that," Chandler predicted, still struggling with Joey's tie, "All they want is our money."
"Yeah, about that…what are we supposed to tell them when they find out we don't have any money?"
"We'll have checked out the security and be long gone by then," Chandler told him, grinning. He stepped back and studied Joey critically. "Pheebs? What do you think?"
Phoebe poked her head in the van from outside and nodded. "You boys look very handsome," she replied, "you definitely don't look like two thieves from New York!"
"Right then! Let's go to the ball!" Chandler said proudly, "Pheebs, guard the van, we shouldn't be back any later than midnight."
****
Monica adjusted the strap of her silvery gown as she got in line outside the museum. She clutched her invitation tightly, studying each group of people walking in past the security at the entrance. Those thieves just had to be here somewhere; there was no way they would pass up an opportunity like this to study security without anyone looking at them suspiciously.
That is, if they were in Vermont at all. Monica had spent an unsuccessful afternoon desperately trying to look for the van and with no results. She concluded they must move it every few hours to cover their tracks. It was becoming very frustrating.
"Hello Sir! This is Lord Tribbiani and I'm his Aide, Mark Johnson!" a male voice just a few places in front of her greeted the security cheerfully. She grinned slightly at the titles of these two men.
"Are you on the list?" the burly guard asked gruffly.
"Well I've never been so insulted in my life!" the blue-eyed Aide said haughtily.
Monica rolled her eyes as she watched the two men walk rather extravagantly past the security and inside. If that was the way rich people acted, she was glad she wasn't one of them. She found it amusing that the 'Lord' of the pair had stayed silent throughout this exchange between the Aide and the guard, as though he was the lesser of the two. If he hadn't sounded like such a snob, Monica would have probably liked the quite handsome Aide.
Stop it; she chided herself, rolling her eyes. Here she was, an undercover secret agent, and she was checking out the male guests.
A few minutes later, she was handing her invitation to the guard and walking inside in the building. Her eyes roamed around the huge room specially set up for the party, shocked at the amount of people gathered around. There looked to be about 200 of them, all wearing tuxes and dresses, talking and laughing about anything and everything.
She stopped to gaze at two men standing in the corner, their eyes darting all over the place as though they were looking for someone. They looked like a rough pair; the taller of the two of them had a scar running down his cheek, the other one had a scowl written across his pale face.
She tapped the shoulder of a distinguished looking lady who turned around and eyed her critically.
"Excuse me? Do you know who the two men are in the corner?" she asked nervously.
"I think they're one of those fundraisers for the event," the woman said airily, "They don't need an invitation, and they just get in after a security check."
"Interesting," Monica murmured.
"Interesting? Those two look like they wished they could be anywhere but here!"
Monica laughed and nodded, seeing that this woman was right. Those two men looked very uncomfortable in their current surroundings.
****
"Did you hear that?" Joey whispered, gulping down his glass of wine hurriedly.
"Hear what?" Chandler asked distractedly, busy checking out the security cameras on the walls.
"What that woman just said! We could have been just fundraisers dude! None of this Lord crap!"
"Oh well, too late to do that now," Chandler said, shrugging, "who said it?"
"That blonde woman over there!" Joey pointed to two women, one dark haired, the other a strawberry blonde, in deep discussion just a few feet away.
Chandler followed Joey's gaze and he swallowed hard, seeing whom he was pointing to. The more petite woman out of the two, with her glistening brunette hair and sparkling silver dress stood out in the crowd. She was beautiful.
"Do you see them?" Joey asked.
"Oh yeah, I see them," Chandler said, his throat going dry as he watched the brunette laugh heartily at something the blonde said.
"Hey, you ok man?" Joey asked, furrowing his brow at Chandler, "you look like you're about to faint! Your eyes look kind of…big and staring?"
The brunette seemed to have sensed that someone was watching her and she turned around, briefly meeting Chandler's eyes. His head snapped away to Joey and his cheeks flushed. "I'm fine-I'm fine," he mumbled, "Shall we-uh-find out where the security are-uh-based at then?"
He pulled Joey to the exit, trying to clear his head.
"You sure you're ok?"
"I'm fine, why shouldn't I be ok?!" Chandler asked hurriedly, walking down the hallway.
"Because you're acting weird," Joey said, hurrying after him, "You're freaking out about something, I can tell." He stopped, his eyes widening. "Oh god, no one recognised us did they?!" he squeaked.
"Of course not!" Chandler exclaimed, turning to wait for Joey to start walking again; "Let's just get this over with, ok?"
The truth was…he was freaking out about something. Those few short seconds he had spent looking into that woman's eyes had made him feel things he had never allowed himself to feel before.
****
Monica could have sworn the Aide she had scorned but secretly admired earlier had been checking out her out just then. In fact, she was sure of it. He had definitely been flustered when he was caught staring at her…and he had the brightest blue eyes she had ever seen.
She had to start focusing on more important things though. She had been assigned to catch a thief and that was what she was going to do.
She went back to watching the two suspicious looking men in the corner of the room, but, to her annoyance, they had disappeared from their spots while she had been staring at the blue-eyed stranger.
"Damn," she muttered. She started to walk swiftly around the room, scanning around for the men. Her gut feeling was that they had something to do with the black panthers and there was no way she was letting them out of her sight.
She saw a side exit and walked out, going through the hallways. As she went through the building, she realised she was getting nearer to the security offices of the museum.
There was a little room to the side of the hallway, in it were a small desk and several television sets scattered around showing images of the party guests. The room was empty.
She walked over to the door, hesitating before going in. The owners had specifically told her that she was banned from this area of the building, telling her that they didn't want any trouble, but if she was ever going to find those men, she would have to watch the television screens to find their location.
She watched the screens intently, hoping the men were on camera, but there was nothing.
To her bewilderment, on one of the screens she saw what looked like the Lord and his Aide running through the hallways. A second later, she saw two other men that she had never seen before chasing after them.
"What the hell," she muttered, eyes widening as she watched the Aide stumble and fall on the floor.
She grabbed at the television, searching for some sort of volume control. She was desperate to know what was going on and after a few frantic minutes she found a switch and flicked it on.
"Joey! Run-run now!" the Aide yelled as the two men that had been chasing him grabbed him by the arms and lifted him up.
Monica watched the other television screen where it showed the 'lord' further up the hallway, staring at his Aide in fright.
"Run!" the Aide bellowed from the screen, "find Phoebe and get help!"
Monica's eyes flickered over to the 'lord' who nodded and ran off screen.
The men who held the struggling Aide dragged him off.
"Oh my god, oh my god," Monica muttered, turning around and crashing straight into the scar faced man she had been looking for in the first place.
"Did you see that?" he whispered dangerously.
"I…I…"
"Robert!" he bellowed, "we have ourselves a witness!"
The other man Monica had been looking for stood in at the entrance and made a grab for her. She screamed and tried to break free, but this man was too strong for her. He clamped a handkerchief on her nose and mouth and she at once felt dizzy and nauseous…then everything went black.
****
Joey crashed through a fire exit at the end of the building and collapsed on the sidewalk, wheezing heavily. Everything had happened so fast. One minute he had been arguing over why Chandler seemed weird and then the next Chandler had turned a deadly pale, told him not to turn around and instead start running.
Of course, he had turned around…and what he had saw made his heart skip a beat. Two strong, burly men had started to chase after them, and then it was simply a game of cat and mouse.
The mice had lost…or at least one of them had. He was free, but Chandler wasn't.
And he didn't have a clue what to do next.
He stood up from his kneeling position on the sidewalk and started to walk quickly through the streets, desperate to get to the van and find Phoebe.
****
"Let go of me!" Chandler yelled, struggling from the men's tight grip on his arms. They dragged him outside to a large van. One of them, the younger looking out of the two, let go of him and opened the back door to the van, revealing an empty space.
"Get in," the other man, still holding an excruciatingly painful grip on his arm, ordered.
"Screw you!" Chandler yelled, causing him to get a hard slap around the face.
"You either get in or we kill you!" the younger man yelled at him, pointing a gun in his face.
"Easy Tyler," the other man told him, "Doug said to bring them back alive."
"Shut up Dave."
"Too bad you've only got one of us, isn't it?" Chandler muttered at him.
"Shut up," Dave snarled now, shoving him into the back of the van and shutting the door. There was now complete darkness, and he couldn't see a thing.
Chandler rubbed the arm that had been held painfully by Dave and groaned loudly. He had no idea who these people were, but obviously they didn't like him. He wondered where Joey was, and hoped he was safe.
"Where have Robert and Tommy got to?" Chandler heard Tyler demand, "They've completely disappeared!"
"Probably enjoying the wine at the party," Dave said with a bitter laugh.
"Here they are," Tyler said now, "where the hell have you two been? And who the bloody hell is that?"
"Yeah, we kind of ran into a complication Tyler," a different voice said, "She saw everything…we couldn't exactly let her go could we?"
"What have you done to her?" Dave asked.
"Drugged her," another voice said, "don't worry, she'll wake up soon."
Chandler widened his eyes. Who had these psychos got with them?
The door opened and he watched a scar faced man, who he guessed was Tommy, shove in an unconscious woman into the van. She laid still next him with her eyes closed.
Chandler sucked in his breath. He was sure it was the woman he had been checking out a little while ago at the party. How did she get involved in this mess?
"Not a word," Tommy warned - slamming the door shut which caused the light to be blocked out again.
Chandler sighed and rubbed his arm again. He wished he had a torch with him, anything to get some light into the cramped space he was trapped in. When this woman woke up, she would be asking questions and he didn't have the faintest idea of what he was going to tell her.
****
End of Chapter 3
:I know there isn't much of Ross and Rachel right now, but they won't be featured until a bit later on.:
