It Happened One Night [COMPLETED]

Chapter 3 - "You are insane, do you know that?"

It was a few minutes before Ezra responded. Liv imagined he was conjuring up a five-point counter-argument, but in the end, his response was simple.

"No." He said it like it was a regret.

The glow Liv felt about being right lasted only a moment until the reality of 'being right' landed. There was an unauthorized man wandering around their law firm in the middle of the night. Her mind jumped to the easiest conclusion, which was also the worst.

Burkstrom and Hale was one of the top law firms in the city and the cases they dealt with weren't just messy divorces. She could think of at least three high-profile cases where the opposing side had much more to lose than a vacation house in the Hampton's.

She thought about the case she was currently working on. Her job was only checking facts: dates, property agreements, blueprints, and court filings, but with a little searching in the local news and paying attention to the clients coming and going, it hadn't been hard to figure out the case involved a business mogul and one of the cities biggest contractors. Each side had hundreds of millions of dollars at stake. And that was true for so many of their other cases. This man could be working for any of their elite clients.

"We need to get to security," Ezra said, just as Liv thought it.

"We need to find the stairs."

She took a step and collided with Ezra. His shoe crushed half of her foot and she cried out. She went to push him back but was startled as he grabbed her face.

"What are you doing?' she hissed, smacking his hands away.

She shoved him back to free her foot.

"I'm trying to shut you up," he whispered through gritted teeth. "Did you forget about the huge, could be dangerous, man searching our office?"

"I did not." She replied in a calm voice, relieved Ezra had reached a similar conclusion.

Now she didn't have to worry about announcing her theory and sounding crazy.

"I'm sorry," she added, "but you stepped on my foot."

"If you were wearing shoes, it wouldn't have mattered."

"My feet hurt, okay? And I didn't realize I would be hiding in the dark from a suspicious man in the middle of the night." He didn't say anything more and she accepted that as a good thing. "We need to find the stairs. I am going to move first." She reached out a hand to find exactly where Ezra was standing and stepped around him.

She waited for him and they crept towards the doorway together. She pressed herself against the right side of the door frame and he did the same on the left. They met each other's gaze and waited. After a minute of complete silence, she motioned for him to stay still as she slowly poked her head around the corner.

After the dark of the kitchen, the low-lit office felt as bright as daybreak. She quickly scanned the area then nodded. She took the first, hesitant step out into the open, Ezra just inches behind her. They paused to listen then took a second step. By their tenth step, they felt more confident and managed to relax their shoulders from their tense hunch.

They retraced their steps back to the hallway leading to the big offices and paused at the corner. Ezra took the lead this time, signaling for her to wait. He eased himself up to the corner and sneaked a peek around it, then waved her forward.

They crept silently down the hall. The emergency lights bounced off the glass office walls and gave the space an eerie feeling. Liv searched the offices they passed for any evidence they had been searched, but everything appeared to be in place. Whatever that man was doing, he had been careful to leave nothing disturbed.