apartment complex where the man lived. Steven Kollman had moved by the time Ashleigh went to that address, but one of his neighbors speculated about a new address, where Ashleigh and Kevin were standing.
“Why would he just show up here now?” Kevin asked. “What’s changed?”
“That’s what I intend to find out.”
“Isn’t he afraid of getting caught?”
“Caught at what?” Ashleigh asked, turning her head toward him. “Knocking on doors in the middle of the night?”
Kevin shrugged. She could tell he wanted to be supportive, but he also had more to say. “Messing with people, I guess.”
Ashleigh ignored him and kept looking.
“I mean,” Kevin said, “if this ends up being the guy who came to your house, you’re sure we don’t want to call the police?”
“I’m sure.” She heard the sound of her voice, the way it snapped out like the lash of a whip. Kevin shrugged again, giving in to her wishes. She knew he just wanted to protect her. She tried to soften her voice. “His name isn’t here.”
“Okay,” Kevin said. “What now?”
Ashleigh started up the stairs into the building. “Come on. We’re going to look,” she said. “Sometimes people have their names on their doors. Or maybe we’ll ask someone else.”
They checked all the doors on the first floor. A couple of names but not the one they were looking for. The hallway smelled dirty and musty, an accumulation of cooking odors and unclean apartments. Ashleigh could only imagine the dust and filth behind the walls. The dirty diapers and greasy stoves, the overflowing garbage cans and dusty corners. Better to think about those things than the task at hand, which made her heart skip and stutter like a damaged DVD. She led Kevin to the second floor, where they again checked all the doors.
Nothing. One more floor to try.
The stairs squeaked and rattled beneath their feet. With every step, Ashleigh gripped the railing tighter, a layer of sweat between her skin and the cold metal. She reached the top and saw the door of the first apartment on the right stood open. She stopped. She felt Kevin behind her, his feet still on the stairs. A plunger, a bucket, and a wrench sat in the hallway just outside the door. Even though she doubted Kevin would speak, she still held her finger in the air, asking for silence.
She wanted to leave. She wanted to back down the stairs, pushing Kevin ahead of her, and go. But she couldn’t. Instead, Ashleigh willed herself forward and peered into the apartment. It looked cluttered and dirty, the floor covered with papers, the furniture rickety and worn. She knocked on the open door, and a pudgy middle-aged man came out of the kitchen. His thinning hair hung in limpid strings, and his thick glasses clung to the tip of his nose so precariously Ashleigh wanted to reach out and push them back up where they belonged.
“Help you?” he said. His face brightened a little, and he brushed some of the strands of hair into a semblance of order. Then his eyes moved over Ashleigh’s head. He saw Kevin, and his face fell a little. “You have to be eighteen to rent,” he said. “And married. I don’t rent to couples who aren’t married.”
“I’m not looking to rent.”
The man’s face pinched up like he had finally caught a whiff of the smells that permeated the building. “Steven Kollman?” he asked.
She nodded. She didn’t know if she could speak.
“He’s not home,” the man said. He reached up and used the back of his hand to wipe sweat off his forehead. “I’m the building manager. Just fixing a leak in the kitchen, although why I’m fixing it for him I’ll never know.”
Ashleigh took a step back. “I guess I’ll come another time.”
“Are you a relative or something?” the man asked.
Ashleigh looked back at Kevin. She shrugged. “Kind of.”
“He’s two months late on his rent, so if you see him before I do, you should tell him to get his act together.” The man looked pleased with his tough talk. “Hey, if you’re a relative, maybe you know someone else who can pay the rent for him?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Anybody can pay it, you know.”
“Sure,” Ashleigh said, backing down the stairs.
The man’s brow furrowed and he scratched at his head. Then his face brightened. “Maybe that guy who came to see him the other night,” the manager said. “Do you know him?”
“A guy?” Ashleigh said. “What guy?”
“I figured maybe he’s a cousin or a brother or something. He seemed to have a little more class than Steven.” The man wiped his nose with his hand. “Sounded like they were arguing.”
“I don’t think I know him,” Ashleigh said.
“Maybe Steven owes him money too.”
“I guess I don’t know about that,” Ashleigh said, and she and Kevin left the building.
Chapter Five
“Michael?” Janet said, moving closer. “Is that-Michael?”
When she said his name, he pushed himself up off the car. He didn’t smile, but his eyes brightened. “Hey.”
“It’s you,” Janet said. “It’s really you.”
They came within arm’s length of each other, and the awkward moment descended in which she didn’t know if they were going to hug or if he even wanted to hug her. But he held out his arms, so she went for it, felt herself folded up against his body, triggering, as if by raw instinct, a flash of heat on the back of her neck and a tingling of desire in the pit of her stomach. She inhaled his rugged scent-a touch of sweat and a tangy cologne or deodorant.
When the hug broke off, she examined him up close in the sunlight. It had been how long? Five years? More? He looked thinner, older, the lines at the corners of his eyes and on his forehead more pronounced and deeper. But he finally smiled, and the old Michael was there, the one from childhood and high school. The Michael she really knew. And that familiar desire was there-desire for him-as strong as it had been in the past.
“I didn’t know you were back,” Janet said.
“I wanted to see my mom,” he said.
“Did you just get back?”
“It’s been a little while.” He seemed evasive, which told Janet that he’d been back longer than he wanted to let on. “A few weeks or so.”
“What have you been doing? Where were you living? We heard you might have been in Chicago for a while.”
“I don’t want to keep you from work,” he said.
Janet made a dismissive wave toward the office. “They don’t need me now,” she said, feeling awkward, like a teenager again. She didn’t know what to do with her hands, so she crossed her arms, then uncrossed them. She did this twice. “Why don’t you come in and we can talk somewhere?”
“I won’t keep you,” he said.
“Okay. But you were in Chicago?”
“That was a couple of years ago,” he said. “I was on the West Coast for a while, then Columbus.”
“You were in Columbus?” Janet said. “Just an hour away?”
“The last year or so,” he said. “I was working for this guy, but-the economy, you know?” He looked around the lot, not letting his eyes rest on Janet.
“But you’re here now,” she said. “For a while?” She heard the hopeful, almost pleading tone in her voice and didn’t like it. But she couldn’t help it. She’d be lying to herself and anyone else if she said she wasn’t thrilled to see him, if she said she didn’t think, from time to time, about the possibility of Michael Bower coming back to Dove
