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“Well, I do. And I do the work I do so you can pretend they don’t exist. I’m a monster hunter; it’s my job. I hunt and catch monsters so people can live their lives and not be afraid of them. It’s why I can’t be home with you, but you know what?”
“What?”
“I keep the monsters away from here too, so you and Mom are safe as well.”
“Yeah, whatever.” She dismissed him, even tried to pull away when he kissed her forehead. The last thing he said before he went out the door was “I’ll always keep the monsters away from you, baby.”
Danni came wide-awake with her father’s statement echoing in her mind. As she got older, she recognized that monsters really meant bad people in the world, people who victimized others. Police officers were supposed to be the good guys.
“‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God,’” Danni said the verse under her breath. Her dad’s faith had been strong. Danni believed—she even prayed once in a while—but lately the church and faith lurked only in her rearview mirror. Was it her father’s death or her divorce that broke her faith? She couldn’t say.
Danni sat up on her towel and pulled her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. She tried not to think about Gabe. Despite her best efforts, her thoughts recently always wound back around to him. The dream she’d had right after she’d gotten beaned was still vivid in her thoughts. Gabe being beheaded. Dreams didn’t really mean anything other than an overactive subconscious, right?
Gabe might be her ex, but Danni didn’t want anything bad to happen to him. When she and Gabe got together, her father had been dead for six months, and the grief was still very raw for Danni. Her dad had always liked Gabe, spoke highly of him. She and Gabe also connected over a mutual Star Trek obsession, a place they both went to escape reality. Danni loved what she’d seen of his heart through his work with Hesed. But none of it was enough to keep the marriage going.
She had been at the lowest point in her life when she’d said yes to his marriage proposal. Everything in her life felt like loss. And Gabe was a lifeline. She’d seen him bring hope back into the eyes of people who’d suffered great loss. She gravitated toward him and fell hard and fast. It was good, their relationship, even their marriage, until that day. She felt her face flush when the memory of the incident that changed how she looked at Gabe surfaced in her mind in Technicolor.
He’d just been promoted, and his classmates threw a party for him at a local cop hangout. Anita Losa was there, a well-known sergeant from a neighboring jurisdiction, nicknamed the “blonde bombshell.” She and Gabe were friends from high school. Seeing them together twisted something in Danni. Even though it was nothing but simple friendship, Danni let her imagination run away with all the wrong thoughts. Before she and Gabe got married, he’d had a reputation for being a player. It was Anita who’d asked Danni the first time they met, “How’d you tame the wild man?” Insecurity engulfed her. Like everyone else who’d left her, she was certain Gabe would as well.
After that day, Danni convinced herself that divorce was the only solution.
Thinking of how off the rails she’d been then made it impossible for Danni to sit still. She stood, grabbed her towel and goggles, and started the walk back to the condo.
Once back at the condo she changed out of her swimsuit into her bike shorts and shirt. She’d rented a bike the day after she arrived, planning to work out. Her mother was happy to keep it in her small storage locker. Danni had competed in bike races and triathlons before she moved to detectives. As she dressed, she tried to remember the last time she’d competed in anything. It had been years. Since promoting, she’d not had the time to train.
It would serve its purpose today if a ride helped her purge all thoughts of Gabe from her mind.
