Nikki leaned against the wall of the communal showers and covered her face with her hands, trying not to cry.

Thank goodness it was so early that no one else was showering. There was absolutely no privacy in this place.

Nikki thought she had no tears left after last night, but the sight of Indiana had the waterworks threatening all over again.

She loved him.

She loved him and he had betrayed her trust.

There was no amount of chemistry that could ever get them past it, no explanation that could justify the fact that he had lost her the best friends she’d ever had.

She let the tears flow, invisible in the warm spray from the shower.

“Are you okay?” Denise’s voice came from the entrance to the showers.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Nikki replied, straightening up and trying to smile.

Denise must think she was crazy. When the lifeguard had roused her to tell her someone was outside for her she’d allowed herself to hope it was Honey or Addy.

Denise had watched her blow hot and cold twice already and they’d only been roommates for seven hours. And they’d spent six and a half of them asleep. Well, Denise had, anyway.

“He left something for you,” Denise said. “Well, he came back and brought it, while you were in here… showering.”

Crying.

“Oh, thanks,” Nikki managed.

“I put it on your bed,” Denise said.

“Thanks,” Nikki replied.

She forced herself to finish her shower and towel off slowly. She should not be in a rush to find out what he had left her. Whatever it was it was from the kind of man who would play with her heart and destroy her friendships.

Back at her bunk, a Maxwell’s envelope sat on her pillow.

A letter. Oh boy.

She sat down to open it.

Nikki slipped the paper from the envelope, surprised to see that it was several pages long.

She looked at the top sheet, and at first she didn’t understand.

The letter wasn’t made of words.

It was just a bunch of initials and numbers and dates.

And it wasn’t just a few. It was whole lines of them, strings of them, some with references to meeting minutes and what looked like last names.

The names were somehow familiar…

And then it hit her.

This was Travers’s trading ledger.

She clutched it to her chest, in a wild embrace, her mind racing with the possibilities.

“Wow, I could tell he was passionate,” Denise said as she came out of the showers in her bright yellow bathrobe. “He was writing so fast.”

“Wait, what?”

“I never saw anyone write that fast before,” Denise said. “It was like he didn’t even have to think about what he was writing.”

“Wow,” Nikki said, looking back at the papers, a new thought occurring to her.

“That’s love,” Denise said, shaking her head.

But it wasn’t love.

It was basically a super power.

Indiana had told Nikki that he was good at remembering things. It hadn’t hit her that he meant he was good at remembering like Kitt was quick and like Remington liked the water.

Indiana had a photographic memory.

And although she couldn’t use the memorized ledger as proof in and of itself, there was enough evidence about the transactions here to research, hand in, and take Travers down.

She absent-mindedly pulled one of her curls down and let it spring back up as she thought.

Why would Indiana still help her?

Or, if he wanted to help her, why would he rat her out to her friends?

She thought about it, and thought about the evidence she had for her article.

As time passed, the women around her began to wake up. The large room was soon filled with the fragrant steam of the showers and the chatter of the other women as they dressed and greeted the day.

Get up, Nikki told herself. You’re not going to make sense of Indiana’s behavior, because it doesn’t make sense.

She got up, dressed, and grabbed her bag.

By the time she got to the pavilion to meet her students, Nikki had decided she was going to keep her head down, teach the rest of the week, and finish her piece on Travers.

When it was done she would head back to New York City.

It was going to be hard to avoid Honey, Addy and the boys, but it would only be for a few days. And once she was back in the city, it would be easier to put all of this in her rearview mirror.

Though it seemed impossible now to think of a day when she wouldn’t miss her friends and long for Indiana, she was a resilient person. She would get through it somehow. She had to. There was no other choice.