The moment he heard her, Clay spun around and faced Cindy directly.
“You, again!” his face grew tight. “What are you doing here, following me?”
Cindy walked closer to him. “Calm down, Clay, I’m not following you.”
“What are you doing here, then?” he demanded, disturbed by the sight of her.
“I just wanted to talk to you a little,” said Cindy quietly, letting the wind carry her words to him.
“Like hell,” said Clay, grabbing another bunch of papers and ripping them up.
“What are those papers in your hands?” Cindy asked, taking another step quietly.
“What business is it of yours?” Clay shot back, tearing them more intensely.
“I’m your friend, Clay,” Cindy said quietly, trying to win back to his confidence.
At that his eyes opened wide. “My friend? You expect me to believe that?”
“I do,” said Cindy.
“She said that to me, too, in exactly the same voice,” Clay remarked, growing edgy.
“Who said that?” asked Cindy, “Kate?”
“No, not Kate,” Clay threw his head back and looked up into the sky. “April, my high school sweetheart. She said she was my friend, but she wasn’t. She made fun of me behind my back. My mother found out about it finally, and let me know.”
“I’m sorry, that sounds awful,” said Cindy.
“Awful is putting it mildly,” Clay seemed suddenly sad. “My mother warned me that you can’t trust any of them. I kept trying though, I didn’t want to believe her for a long time.”
“Your mother said you couldn’t trust any women?” Cindy was horrified.
“Yes, and she was right,” mumbled Clay.
“That must have been hard to live with that idea,” said Cindy.
“Very,” Clay raised his head and tossed it backwards again, as if scanning the sky for something.
“What are you looking for, Clay?” asked Cindy.
“Traces of love, long left behind,” he murmured. “Where did it go?”
Cindy shuddered again. He seemed disoriented. Was he reciting a poem? Had the loss of Kate unhinged him?
“Are you reciting a poem?” asked Cindy softly.
“A poem I wrote long ago,” said Clay, looking back down at her. “I love my poems, I read them over and over. When I can’t sleep at night, I write new ones.”
“Do you have trouble sleeping at night, Clay?” asked Cindy, curious.
Clay looked at Cindy oddly then. “Most nights I do,” his voice dropped so low she could barely hear him. “Did you know that the night is a dark and dangerous time?”
“I didn’t know that,” said Cindy, coming closer, but afraid to get too near to the edge of the precipice they were standing on.
“My mother told me to be careful at night when I was little, but it took me years to realize it was true,” Clay went on. “Bad things happen at night when you’re sleeping. You always have to be on guard.”
Cindy wanted to ask what happened to Kate at night, how the danger happened, but she backed off. It would be too much to confront him just like that. He knew something had happened though. Obviously, he’d blocked it out.
“How do you stay on guard at night, Clay?” Cindy continued.
“I sleep and wake and wake and sleep during the dangerous night,” he practically whimpered, moving closer to her.
How could he have possibly slept through Kate falling from the patio, then? Cindy wondered.
“You hear every little noise in the room when you sleep?” Cindy spoke to him as though he were a child.
“I walk in my sleep all the time,” Clay said, matter of factly. “I have since I was a little boy. I walk and guard my family against danger.”
“You sleepwalk?”
“All the time,” said Clay, looking proud of it.
Cindy gasped. Did Clay harm Kate while walk in his sleep and not even realize it?
“What happens when you walk in your sleep?” Cindy’s voice grew more shaky.
“I don’t know,” said Clay, “I can’t remember. “But I know that it’s dangerous for me to sleep any place but home. Sometimes I do, though.”
Cindy felt the blood rush from her face. “No one knew you were coming to Aruba to sleep over here, did they, Clay?” she asked.
“No one but Kate,” said Clay then, turning to Cindy with an eerie smile. “Kate knew it, she was excited. Kate loved me so much. She was thrilled.”
“And, where did you sleep when you came up to New York to visit Kate?” Cindy asked.
“I slept at a motel nearby. Nothing bad happened then,” said Clay.
Nothing bad happened, it surprised Cindy to hear him say that. At least he was aware that something bad had happened this time.
“Did something bad happen this time, Clay?” Cindy asked pointedly.
“I think it did,” said Clay. “Something happened to Kate. Someone took her away from me,” his hands clenched into fists as he said that.
“Who did it?” Cindy shot out.
“I have no idea,” Clay wailed.