Disclaimer: Not mine.
A/N: Just a note to nancy drew: Trust me, it has nothing to do with your age. (It has everything to do with the fact that I'm a Nancy/Frank shipper.) Sorry I may not be using your pairing, but I hope you'll continue to read and review anyway!
At eight o'clock, Nancy, Joe, and Frank walked up to the third floor. Just walked right up.
"Where are all the workmen?" Nancy asked. The tarps were still there, but the ladders and men were gone.
"Maybe they've gone home for the day." Joe suggested.
"Maybe." Frank said skeptically.
The trio reached room 318 and hesitated at the door. Joe finally took the initiative and reached for the handle. It turned easily.
"It must be a trap." Frank whispered urgently.
Nancy bit her lip. "I know. But I don't think Joe cares." she whispered back.
The door swung open into room 318, which was just as empty as it had been earlier. Joe shot a confused glance at Frank and Nancy, then steeled himself and carefully stepped into the room.
Frank turned to Nancy. "One of us should stay out here."
Nancy nodded and was just about to volunteer when a voice from behind her spoke up. "Why?"
Frank and Nancy jumped, startled, to face Charity, who had somehow worked her way into their little huddle. Charity wore a bright smile, but her eyes gleamed with malice. She held out a hand to Frank. "Frank Hardy! It's been a while." Frank refused to shake it, so Charity turned to Nancy. "He's a bit of a bad sport. And you are?" Nancy was silent, her gaze flickering between Frank and Charity. Charity sighed. "Ah, well, I feared you guys would try something, so I was forced to bring up the rear. Go on inside."
Frank crossed his arms. "And what if we don't?"
Charity shrugged. "Then poor Joe may never see his girlfriend again."
Nancy and Frank, defeated, stepped into the room with Charity right behind them. They frowned as they heard the door lock. Nancy grabbed the door handle and twisted. It wouldn't budge. "She's messed with the locks." she said to Frank.
Charity smiled breezily. "I can't take all the credit." she said. "Now where's Joe?" Joe was no longer in the main room.
"He's right here." Nancy and Frank recognized the British accent of Fiona Fox as she came out of the bathroom, leading Joe at gunpoint. Fiona was a slender young red-haired cat burglar who had escaped from Nancy, Frank, and Joe on several occasions.
Joe's eyes blazed as he saw Charity. "What did you do with Vanessa?" he growled.
"Ah ah ah." Fiona tsked, waving the revolver at Joe. "Be nice."
Frank stepped forward angrily. "What is going on here?" he asked, looking from Fiona to Charity.
"Oh, now he wants to talk." Charity said mockingly.
"Have a seat." Fiona said politely, lowering the gun. Frank and Nancy reluctantly took a seat on one of the single beds, but Joe remained standing. "Joe," she warned in her melodious voice. "I said sit down."
"I'll stand, thanks." Joe replied coldly. "Now, can we get down to business?"
"I suppose we should." Fiona replied. With one hand, she pushed her long red hair out of her face. "If you're ready to talk nicely."
Frank raised an eyebrow. "So says the girl with the gun."
Fiona repressed a smile. She spun the revolver around her finger, cocked the hammer, and snapped off a shot at Frank!
Ned knew he shouldn't have done it. He should not have kissed Callie Shaw. Lying in bed after the fact, he realized that it was a bad idea. This whole scheme to make Nancy jealous was a bad idea. Because he found that the more he spent time with Callie, the more he liked it.
Yeah, it was a bad idea, but that didn't stop him from wanting to do it again.
But how could he? If he couldn't keep his hands (and lips) off of Frank's girlfriend, he was no better than Nancy and Frank. Granted, he had never actually seen them kissing, but deep down inside, he suspected it was happening… Maybe that was why he overreacted about the "sharing a room" thing. He should trust Nancy. What was a relationship without trust?
Closing his eyes, Ned shook his head. Whatever was happening between him and Callie, it had to stop. Nancy trusted him. Not to mention that Callie's boyfriend was very, very good at martial arts...
All in the space of three or four seconds, the gun gave a loud click as it went off. Nancy and Joe stared at Fiona in blank horror. Frank had his eyes closed tightly, waiting for the impact of the bullet. There was no way she could miss at this range… The impact didn't come. Frank opened one eye to look at Fiona, who was smiling mischievously. Frank looked down to see the bullet casings on the floor and it hit him. "Blanks."
Fiona grinned at him. "That's right. So you see, you three actually have the upper hand here." She dropped the gun to the floor.
Charity snorted. "Yeah, if the other two weren't still in shock." Joe turned on his heel to advance on Charity, who involuntarily backed up when she saw the murderous expression on his face.
"Not now, Joe." Frank said quietly. He felt a hand slip into his. Startled, he looked back at Nancy. Her face was pale and Frank gave her hand a squeeze. "It's okay." he murmured reassuringly. "They're done playing now." Nancy nodded, still unable to speak.
Charity sat on the bed opposite Frank and Nancy. "Really, Frank," she said. "Why did you never mention that your girlfriend looks just like me?"
Nancy found her voice and tilted her chin up defiantly. "Because she doesn't. She's a bit shorter and her hair is more blonde."
"That's right." Fiona said. "Nancy isn't Frank's girlfriend."
"Well, why not?" Charity asked, looking pointedly at their entwined fingers.
"Can we talk about Vanessa now?" Joe said loudly. Frank and Nancy shot him grateful glances.
"Why, certainly." Fiona said charmingly.
Joe had a sudden thought. "Where's your father?" he asked Fiona. Dr. Fox was not only Fiona's father, but her partner-in-crime. He had given Joe a nasty bump on the head one time, and Joe still held a grudge. "Is he waiting to ambush us somewhere?" he asked suspiciously.
Her reaction to his words was the last thing he expected: Fiona burst into tears. Sobbing, she turned to Joe and buried her face in his chest. He stared at her in confusion and horror for a minute before reluctantly putting his arms around her and rubbing her back. "What happened, Fiona? Don't cry. Tell me what's wrong."
Charity spoke up matter-of-factly. "Actually, that's one of the things we wanted to discuss with you. Dr. Fox has been kidnapped."
Fiona's sobbing grew louder.
"…By the same person who kidnapped Vanessa Bender." Charity finished, looking to Joe to gauge his reaction.
"What?" Joe burst out. "Who has her?" Looking at Fiona, he amended, "Them."
Frank turned his gaze to Charity. "I think you had better explain." he said tightly.
"From the beginning." Nancy added.
"Ah, yes." Charity started. "Well, the Foxes and I got here about a week ago. We had both been contacted by the same person: A criminal known only as "the Mirage"."
"'The Mirage'?" Nancy repeated incredulously.
"He or she is called that because he or she is untouchable." Charity explained. "He or she has never been caught or even seen."
"For conversational purposes, let's just assume it's a "he"." Nancy said dryly. "Now go on."
"Okay." Charity agreed, smiling pleasantly. "The Mirage had contacted us to help him pull off a theft."
"Let me guess." Frank said. "The theft of the Velazquez exhibit from the local museum."
"Of course." Charity said, delighted. "Nothing gets past you, does it?"
"Get to the part about Vanessa." Joe ordered harshly.
"Very well." Charity continued. "The Mirage agreed to give the Foxes and me the manpower to pull off a grand-scale theft. After all, some of those paintings are quite large. After some careful discussion on our parts, we decided to accept his proposition. The problem is, the Mirage wanted a quarter of the loot."
"And you weren't willing to give that up." Frank finished.
"You were planning to double-cross him?" Nancy asked.
"Well, in so many words, yes." Charity said. Noticing the impatient looks Joe was giving her, she said. "Here's where Vanessa comes in. Fiona and I needed the money for equipment to rob the museum. So we robbed a convenience store."
"Hah." Joe snorted. "The world's best cat burglars, robbing gas stations?"
"It wasn't worth the trouble of planning a big robbery." Charity explained. "The hardest part was making it look like an amateur job without getting caught. Between the three of us, we could have robbed that store without even being seen, but if the Mirage had somehow found out that money had just disappeared without a trace, he might have gotten suspicious of us."
"What do you mean?" Joe asked.
"The Mirage had offered to supply the means of robbing the place, so if he found that Charity and Fiona were stealing smaller amounts of money from other stores, he might suspect that they were trying to pull off the theft on their own." Frank told him.
"Exactly." Charity said, giving Frank a smile. "Anyway, stealing the money was easy. Fiona put on a mask and went into the store with the gun. The cashier gave her the money and she ran to the curb, where Dr. Fox was waiting in the getaway car. We ran into a bit of trouble when the cashier called the police and they started searching for her car, but we had a plan. The Foxes would drive to the parking lot down the street, where I would be waiting in a different car. Fiona would take the money and get in the car with me, and Dr. Fox would keep driving around, disguised, of course, as a feeble old man. He would let himself be caught if necessary, but there would be nothing incriminating in the car, so he couldn't be arrested."
Frank and Nancy nodded to show that they were with her. "And Vanessa?" Joe pressed.
"She accidentally stumbled into the middle of our transaction." Charity said simply. "I was late, being held up in traffic." She shook her head. "I know! Can you believe it? Anyway, I wasn't in the appointed spot in my black Taurus, but someone was in the appointed spot."
"Vanessa." Nancy put in.
"That's right." Joe said. "But she drives a blue Taurus, not black."
Charity rolled her eyes. "It was the middle of the night, Joe, and this neighborhood isn't exactly well-lighted. It's easy to mistake a dark blue Taurus with a blonde driver for a black Taurus with a strawberry-blonde driver in the dark, and that's what Fiona did. She jumped out of the getaway car into the backseat of Vanessa's, thinking it was mine. It was just a case of mistaken identity." She shook her head sadly. "The best laid plans…"
"What happened to Vanessa?" Joe practically yelled.
Charity shrugged. "From what I can tell, Vanessa screamed, and Fiona hit her over the head with her father's cane. Reflex, you know?"
Joe growled, letting go of Fiona and stepping away from her. Fiona stared at him with red-rimmed eyes. "I'm sorry, Joe. I didn't hurt her much; she was only unconscious. I realized then what must have happened, so I carefully wiped all of my fingerprints off the car and cane, stashed the cane under the car, and waited for Charity to come. She did eventually, and we put the girl in Charity's car and took her to the hotel. We had no idea she knew you, honestly."
"That's right. If we had known you were going to show up looking for her, we certainly would have left her in the car." Charity added. "More trouble than she was worth, that one."
"We would not have left her!" Fiona exclaimed. "We brought her back to make sure she was okay."
"And because she had found out about your little operation." Joe growled.
A confused look passed over Frank's face, but he said nothing.
"When we brought her back to the hotel, we had to drag her between the two of us." Charity laughed. "We told the receptionist she was drunk."
Nancy ignored the comment. "How did she get kidnapped?"
Charity frowned. "I suppose we underestimated the Mirage. Early this morning, he sent some men to our room. We promised to untie Vanessa if she went to sleep, so she wasn't bound, but Fiona was watching her. She had mentioned that she was Joe's girlfriend, in a rather threatening way, I might say, so we agreed that she needed to be carefully guarded. Anyway, two thugs showed up and wanted to know who she was, and why she was in on the operation. So we told them that she was my sister."
"Oh." Nancy breathed. "So they took Vanessa and Dr. Fox back to the Mirage as hostages so the two of you wouldn't double-cross him."
"Yes." Fiona said sadly, tears leaking from her eyes.
"What are you going to do?" Frank asked.
"Go to the police?" Joe suggested.
Fiona hiccupped. "Really, Joe. Charity and I are master thieves wanted in several states. Do you really think we could go to the police?"
"Well, what are you going to do?" Frank repeated. "And why did you contact us?"
"Well, we felt bad about losing Vanessa." Fiona confessed ashamedly. "When we heard you were here, we knew that you at least deserved the chance to try to rescue her." she looked at Joe pityingly. "Also…"
"What?" Joe demanded.
"Without my father, we were having some trouble planning the heist." Fiona said, unable to look Joe in the face.
"You want us to help you rob a museum!" Frank exclaimed disbelievingly.
Charity stood up and walked towards him. "More specifically," She stopped in front of Nancy and looked her in the eye. "We want you to help us rob the museum."
A/N: This is definitely my favorite chapter!Will Nancy have to help the thieves robthemuseum?Sorry for the wait, but my Science Olympiad team is training hard for a state competition, so I don't have much time to write. Please review and tell me what you think of this chapter; you have no idea how much I'd appreciate it!