Near the dumpsters.
Nothing.
Alderman Court had an underground parking garage accessed from the alley.
Roger went down.
Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead.
“Hector?”
His voice echoed between concrete pillars.
No answer.
He checked the mailroom.
Laundry room.
The little storage hallway beside the boiler room.
Nothing.
By 5:00, the November sky was darkening.
Roger felt ridiculous.
A seventy-four-year-old man wandering around a building searching for a cat he did not technically own.
Then he reminded himself that technical ownership had nothing to do with concern.
Hector was missing.
That mattered.
Roger entered the stairwell because the elevator had been slow.
He planned to check the lobby again.
Then he heard it.
A faint sound above him.
He stopped.
Waited.
Nothing.
Roger frowned.
Then it came again.
Meow.
Thin.
Urgent.
High above.
Roger looked up the concrete stairwell.
“Hector?”
Another meow.
Louder.
Roger’s heart tightened.
He started climbing.
He rarely used the stairs anymore.
His right knee had arthritis.
By the third floor, it was complaining.
Roger held the railing.
“Hector!”
Meow.
Fourth floor.
The sound grew louder.
Roger breathed harder.
He had not climbed this many stairs continuously in months.
“Hold on.”
He almost laughed at himself.
As if the cat understood.
Fifth floor.
Roger pushed through the stairwell door.
The hallway smelled of lemon cleaner and somebody’s roasted garlic dinner.
The carpet pattern had faded from decades of feet.
At the far end, beneath the light outside apartment 561, sat Hector.
Roger stopped.
The cat looked completely different from the calm creature who occupied the front step each afternoon.
His body was pressed against the apartment door.
His tail lashed.
His blue eyes were wide.
“Hector.”
The cat meowed sharply.
Roger walked closer.
“What are you doing?”
Hector turned toward the door.
Then back to Roger.
Then toward the door again.
Roger crouched with difficulty.
“Come here.”
He extended one hand.
Hector dodged it.
That was unusual.
The cat pressed his nose beneath the narrow gap under apartment 561.
He inhaled.
Then scratched at the door.
“Hector.”
The cat released a sound Roger had never heard from him.
Long.
Raw.
Almost a cry.
Roger’s skin prickled.
He looked at the apartment number.
He had no idea who lived there.
That embarrassed him.
Twenty-three years in the same building and he did not know the person five floors above him.
Elaine would have.
Roger stood.
He knocked.
Three firm raps.
“Hello?”
Silence.
He waited.
Knocked again.
“Hello?”
Hector scratched harder.
Roger raised his voice.
“This is Roger from the second floor.”
He nearly added that he was there because of a cat and realized how absurd that sounded.
“Is everything all right?”
Nothing.
Hector’s claws scraped across the wood.
Roger bent closer to the door.
No movement inside.
No footsteps.
No television that he could hear.
Nothing.
He pulled out his phone.
The building superintendent, Darren Voit, answered on the fifth ring.
“Roger?”
“Darren.”
“You okay?”
“I don’t know.”
Darren paused.
“That sounds promising.”
“I’m outside apartment 561.”
“What are you doing on five?”