Adam draped his arm over my shoulders and briefly pressed his lips to my temple as we stepped out of the tram station and onto Victoria Street. The evening was mild, there was no chill in the air, and the sky was clear, with only the myriad of stars in the distant galaxy to gaze at. It was the perfect night to be out walking.
"Alright, you two," Daniel greeted us, his hands full of Speed Daal takeaway containers, "been anywhere nice?"
"New Korean barbeque place in town," Adam replied.
"Any good?"
"Delicious."
"Well worth the trip in if you ever want to change things up," I added my seal of approval.
"Hey!" Daniel protested, "What are you trying to say? That my dining choices are boring?"
"I wouldn't dare," I teased, "maybe a tad predictable."
"I'm surprised at you though, Adam," Daniel changed the subject, "going out on the town while your staff works overtime."
"What do you mean?"
"I just saw them, at your office."
"Who did you see?"
"Well, I didn't exactly see anyone," Daniel admitted, "I saw the lights on and assumed you were working late, but no, it's your poor overworked staff while you're out enjoying yourself."
"No one's working tonight," Adam said, "I should know, I was the last one to leave."
"In that case, you must've left the lights on. Wouldn't want to be you when you get your lecky bill. Anyway, I better be off, get this home while it's still hot."
"Do you mind if we stop by the office?" Adam asked me after Daniel had hurried away into the night.
"One light ain't gonna add much to the lecky," I joked.
"It's not that, it's… I'm positive I didn't leave the lights on."
"It's easy to do, nothing to be ashamed of," I replied light-heartedly but, on seeing Adam's look of genuine concern, immediately added, "I guess it can't hurt to check it out, it is on the way."
As it turned out, Adam was right to be concerned. Although the front door was locked and the lights were off when we arrived to check things out, we soon discovered that the filing cabinet had been jimmied open, the metal shroud bent and misshapen, bulging from where a crowbar had been forced in.
"Damn!" Adam exclaimed, rushing to the cabinet and pulling open drawer after drawer, flipping through the contents, frantically trying to figure out what was missing. "What were they after?"
"What do you keep in there?"
"Hard copies of all official documents, signed copies, you know, case notes, strategy, opinion, it's all in here."
"Shouldn't we call the police?"
"And say what? I don't know what's missing yet, if anything. I'm gonna have to go through everything, cross-check the hard copies with the digital versions. It's gonna take me forever."
"In the meantime, I'm gonna call the police. Just in case."
"In case what?"
"I don't know, in case any of those documents fall into the wrong hands, then calling the police in a timely manner and getting a report number, your backside will be covered. Liability or summat, right?"
Adam was convinced; the police were called, attended the scene, dusted for prints, and left Adam with an empty promise to 'look into it'. Without much confidence in the police investigation leading to anything, we set to doing what we could to get things back to some semblance of normality.
"You fire up the computer," I instructed Adam, my efficiency kink setting in, "while I go through the files. We can check them off as we go."
"Are you serious?" Adam said, confusion reigning supreme on his face.
"You said it'll take forever, right? So the sooner we start the sooner we finish."
"I didn't mean you– I wasn't hinting or expecting you to do it."
"I know," I said, reaching out and softly stroking his cheek, "but I want to do it."
"You want to do it?"
"I want to help out my fella. Is that alright with you?"
"Thank you." He kissed my forehead softly, emphasising his gratitude, before proclaiming with renewed positivity, "we better get started then."
And so we worked until the early hours; I would call out the client name, the date, the contents, whatever it took to correctly identify the document, and Adam would respond when he had located the corresponding digital file. We got through a fair whack of the cabinet before we called it a night, both yawning widely, no longer able to focus, the documents swimming before our eyes. Adam declared he would finish it off in the morning on his own and we both headed home to our respective beds.
"Late night?" Sarah asked, one eyebrow raised as she watched me yawn widely. It was the next day and, despite the copious amounts of coffee I'd poured down my throat, I couldn't shake off the tiredness I'd accrued from the previous evening's activities.
"Sort of."
"Out with Adam?"
A cutting glance in Sarah's direction was the only response I gave to this seemingly innocent question. In the days since the great bistro confrontation, Sarah and I had, while quietly enforcing an unspoken agreement, ignored what had happened and continued on, business as usual. She had no doubt believed she'd made her point with her and Damon's public display of togetherness and so needn't press the issue. I was glad of this. I had no desire to rake over the past and was happy with the status quo, however shaky, with both of us neither mentioning nor parading our new relationships in front of the other.
Good intentions though can only go so far. When reality strikes, all you can do is roll with the punches. Reality that day came in the form of Adam appearing in the flesh at the office door while Sarah and I were in the middle of a production planning meeting.
"Sorry to interrupt," Adam said, glancing from me to Sarah and then back to me with some apprehension, "I need to speak to you."
"We're in the middle of a meeting," Sarah was the one to answer for both of us.
"It is important." Adam ignored Sarah, focusing his gaze only on me.
"Sarah, do you mind?"
I looked at Sarah, hoping she would get the hint and leave. It was a brief standoff which soon ended with Sarah letting out an audible sigh and spitting "Fine!" in my direction before snatching up her clipboard and rising from her seat. "I'll see how the girls are getting on with the McNees order."
"Thanks, Sarah." I watched her leave and, after Adam had closed the door behind her, couldn't help but complain, "So much for keeping out of her way."
"I'm sorry, but this can't be helped."
"What's up?"
"I finished cross-checking the files."
"And?"
"They're all there, there's nothing missing."
"That's good, yeah?"
"I thought so, until I received this."
His 'this' was to pull out his phone from his pocket, unlock it, and hand it to me.
"What's is it?" I asked, staring at the screen that was open to a message which, going by the time stamp, Adam had received about half an hour earlier. There was no text message, just a photograph of a document I didn't recognise.
"It's some of my case notes for a trial starting next week."
"I don't understand."
"Case notes stolen last night."
"I thought you said nothing–"
"Yeah, nothing was physically stolen, but it looks like whoever broke in took photos of, I don't even know, possibly everything that was in the cabinet."
"But who?" I asked, "and why?"
"Why? To ruin me. Carla, they've got my trial strategy notes, my personal opinions of my clients, their personal information. Everything. If this goes public, I'm ruined. My reputation… gone in an instant. And as for who, there is someone. Someone who'd love to get their revenge."