“It’s okay,” Mattheus put his hand on Clay’s arm.
“It’s not okay,” Clay began yelling. “She’s gone, she’s gone. When I looked down off the patio, there she was laying on the ground.” Clay covered his eyes as if to block out the image. “Where is she now? Tell me.”
“We’d better back off,” Cindy said to Mattheus. “This is too much for him at the moment. He’s not ready to talk.”
Mattheus agreed. “I’m so sorry, Clay, “he said softly. We’ll find out more what happened and help you with this.”
“How can you help me? Can you bring Kate back?” Clay yelled louder.
“No, we can’t,” said Mattheus somber.
“We only knew each other for three months, but those three months meant more than my whole lifetime. I want my parents, I want my mother,” Clay looked at them suddenly as if they were strangers.
“Your parents will be here in a few minutes,” said Cindy.
“Thank God,” said Clay, as his head fell and his chest heaved in huge sobs.
*
After the policeman came back in, Cindy and Mattheus left Clay’s room and went down to the lobby, shaken. They needed a little while to talk before Cindy went back up and went through Kate’s Facebook page on the computer. She and Mattheus had to go over their plan of action and also discuss their interview with Clay. Mattheus was eager to talk about it, too.
“The guys’s a wreck,” Mattheus started. “Can’t say I blame him. Been there myself.”
“Thank God his parents are coming,” said Cindy.
“And what about this ex-boyfriend, Sean, who joined them at their table?” Mattheus was all over it. “That’s big. The police haven’t said a thing about him. Do they even know he was here? Is this guy still at the hotel?”
“Good questions,” said Cindy.
“Sean’s got to be stopped from leaving and talked to right away,” Mattheus was emphatic.
“You tell the police about him when I go back upstairs to look at Kate’s computer,” said Cindy.
“Absolutely,” said Mattheus.
“It actually amazing that the police have been on the case all this while and we haven’t heard about the ex boyfriend before,” Cindy muttered. “And, there’d been trouble between him and Kate, too. He cheated and she wouldn’t forgive him. Who knows if he really met her here by accident? How do we know he didn’t come down purposely?”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” said Mattheus. “We have to find out more about him and if he’s still here. We’ll talk to him and research him online.”
“It’s amazing that the police aren’t onto this,” breathed Cindy.
“Not amazing,” Mattheus said, “just the way things work down here.”
“They want to tie it up with a suicide,” Cindy muttered.
“Yeah, but what they want and what will happen can easily be two different things,” Mattheus was heated, had become involved.
Cindy looked at him and smiled. “You’re on it. You care,” she said.
“Of course I care, I always cared,” Mattheus muttered. “I just cared about us as well.”
Cindy paused and lowered her eyes then, thinking of what Clay had said about Kate.
“Mattheus,” she looked up quickly, wanting to take it one next step.
“What?” he asked curious.
“Do you feel about me the way Clay said he felt about Kate? That you know who you are when you’re with me? That I take your loneliness away?”
Mattheus was silent for a long moment.
“I think the real question is, do you feel that way about me, Cindy?” he finally replied.
CHAPTER 9
When Cindy got back upstairs and went into Clay’s room, his back was to her again and he was standing immobile, staring out the window at the sky.
“Hi, Clay,” Cindy said softly as she entered.
Seemingly lost in thought, he did not move or respond.
“I came to look at the computer,” Cindy continued, is that okay?”
Clay nodded briefly and then became motionless once again.
The policeman in the room got up and led Cindy out to the patio, where the laptop was on a table, closed.
“This guy’s in shock,” the cop said under his breath. “Stands like that for hours, just looking at the sky. Doesn’t hear a thing I say to him.”
“It takes time,” Cindy whispered softly.
The cop pulled out a chair at the table for Cindy, and she sat down and opened it up.
“Want some water or something?” he said.
“No, I’m fine, thanks,” said Cindy, eager to dip more fully into Kate’s life. The answer to what had happened to her had to be close by. Maybe as close as her computer, that was waiting silently on the table.
As soon as Cindy opened it up, Kate’s Facebook page appeared. It was bursting full of excitement, photos and messages. On the top of the page was a picture of Kate and Clay, smiling at each other. Apparently it was recent, taken down here in Aruba.