Page 12 of Enemies in Paradise

Everythingisoff. My job. My future. My purpose in life.

But I set up another ball and take a second shot… And miss again.

When I’m working a case and can’t make the dots connect, target practice helps me refocus my thoughts and put the pieces together. Successfully hitting the exact point I’m aiming for triggers connections between the more important targets I have in my head.

Normally, I’d be at my squad’s shooting range in LA—the sun shining and palm trees swaying outside—joking around with my partner, Carlos, while he tries to beat my record for clean shots. I hit my mark—whether it’s a bullseye or a paper bad guy—more often than I miss.

But there’s no shooting range in Paradise where I can work out the questions gnawing at my brain. I’m not familiar enough with the area to know where I can safely set up my own target practice. So, I’m standing in the middle of a frozen field with an old golf club and a bucket of balls, shaking with cold while trying to hit a target flapping in the wind.

It’s not the weather I’m bitter about. I’ve been thinking about leaving the force and LA for a while now, but I want it to bemychoice. Not Captain Markham’s. He’s the reason my life is off the course I’ve carefully planned over the past decade. So it’s his face I picture both on the target I’m aiming for and the ball I’m driving toward it.

Shooting a gun today would have been better for my clarity and direction. Watching a bullet pierce through paper would have helped me figure out if I really want to give up my entire life—everything I know in the one place I’ve ever lived—to takea chance on opening a bookstore—something I know nothing about—in a town with fewer people than the high school I went to in LA.

Instead, I’m swinging at golf balls, trying to get Markham’s smirk out of my head and missing my target by a mile.

Don’t get me wrong. If I can’t have a gun in my hand, a golf club is my second choice. Playing golf paid for my college education with a scholarship to Cal State LA. Which makes it even more frustrating I can’t hit my pretend bad guy. It’s bad enough I don’t have my gun, but my swing is all wonky too. To be fair, I’ve never played in twenty-degree weather with wind-blown flakes of snow hitting me in the face.

I set up another ball as the song switches tomad womanon my Raging Female playlist. I picture Captain Markham’s face and take another swing. This one hits the target, but the wrong person. My female hostage takes it right in the face.

That tracks, given my life right now.

The face on the hostage might as well be mine. Markham’s had a target on me since I reported him for gender discrimination and harassment.

I should have waited until I knew for sure I was ready to turn in my badge, but I lost my temper last week when he cornered me—again—and said, “You think you’ve got what it takes to be more than a pretty face?” Then dared me to prove it.

So I did.

I pushed him against the wall. “Never talk to me like that again,” I told him with my forearm against his throat.

He smirked, and I lost what little hold I had on him.

“I’m your superior. It’s my job to motivate you,” he’d said when I dropped my arm back to my side.

I filed a report against him that same day before he could report me for insubordination. I was too late. By the next morning, my Deputy Chief suggested I take some vacation days,effective immediately. I couldn’t stay in LA, waiting to hear whether my claims will be investigated, so I asked Georgia if I could visit her.

On paper, nothing Markham has said could be construed as harassment. It’s the way he says the things he does that feels akin to harassment or discrimination. Sometimes both. But he says them with no one else around and in a voice that could be him coming onto me, or… it could be me imagining things—being oversensitive, because I’m a woman as Markham says.

I honestly don’t know anymore.

Lucky for me, I’ve got plenty of time to obsess about what’s going to happen to my career while I wait to hear from the division handling my complaint.

I step away from the tee and practice my swing, focusing on controlling the motion of my arms in order to control where the club hits the ball. There’s no swinging and missing when I’m in control of my thoughts and emotions. When I’m laser-focused on what’s important.

Except, that’s my problem. So many things I used to consider important don’t feel that way anymore. Especially after three days in this small town where life is slower, people know each other, and quiet is easier to find. I not only have time to read, I’m able to sink into the stillness that makes reading peaceful and restorative.

Even before I lost it with Markham, it wasn’t just him getting to me. It was the job itself. The days I work, I leave feeling depleted and wondering what I did that made a difference. On days off, I can’t leave the work behind. I can’t find the stillness I need to make it through my next shift.

I just don’t think I love police work anymore.

Except now if I decide to leave, Markham will believe he’s won, when really it’s what I wanted all along.

I tee a ball, then face the target and point my club at it.

“I’m coming for you,” I say loud enough for my bad guy to hear—if he were a real person.

I position myself perfectly, lining up my club with the ball. I’m just about to swing when someone taps my shoulder. Instinct kicks in and my hand goes to my hip, but of course my gun isn’t there. I swing around—golf club raised—to find a giant, bearded man standing behind me, his dog at his heels.

Bear Thomsen.

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