Divorced! Now what?
Chapter 81

Theo POV

Once I was over the shock, we talked some more. Bob is a good guy, and to be duped by Wendy, as he had shown how easy it was to do for anyone, and how we might need to look deeper into our marriage recordings. With today's technology, we should be able to avoid ever having bigamy again. I know in some countries, it is okay to have more than one partner, but not in ours, so we must replace a way to improve the recording. Will we have to end up with DNA samples or fingerprinting to prove who we are? Should we get that deep, something like this group should never have been able to form. It may have started as a bit of fun thirty years ago, but it grew into something ugly and more sinister.

It was nearly three hours before Dad came out of the room holding Bethany and sat beside me at the table. Bob was the first to stand up and get him a coffee and a toasted sandwich. Dad looked shattered. He does not do all-nighters anymore, and tonight had not only been long for him, but he also had to work on someone he cared for, and that is always difficult at the best of times.

Dad took a few long pulls of the coffee, and soon the cup was empty, and Bob was filling it again.

I still don't think there was anything said.

We watched and waited for Dad to be ready to tell us what he needed to say. Then, as long last, he spoke.

'Bethany has three broken ribs, lucky none punctured her lunges, broken left arm, fractured eye socket, cracked cheekbone, swelling on the brain, and we won't go into all the lesions and bruises she has, some from the glass, some from being thrown around. There are no internal injuries that I can see. I have sedated her and will keep her in a comatose condition until the swelling in the brain goes down. There is little more that I can do, except wait and monitor.

'Go home, Dad, and get some sleep. I will stay here and watch her. I will call you if there is any change.' I suggested Dad not argue when the others murmured their agreement. I watched Dad leave and looked at the other two men as if we all agreed. We stood up and headed to Bethany's room.

I let Bob go in first, followed by Robson, and took the rear; I watched Bob's shoulders shake and knew it must look bad. I was a little nervous to look, but I knew it was going to break my heart when I saw her.

She was all battered and bruised. Lying as if sleeping on the bed, tubes coming out of both arms, tubes down her throat, and wires all over her, yep, she looked about what I expected until I got closer and gasped, knowing and seeing all different things.

My girl was black and blue. Not one part of her face was untouched, and what I could not see was because the bandages covered it, but it was the same underneath. Her whole face was swollen, and if I had not been told that it was Bethany before me, I would not have recognized her; she was in such bad shape.

Bob sniffed back a sob and kissed her forehead before backing away. Robson kissed her cheek and backed away, leaving me to go to her. I sat on a chair next to the bed on the right-hand side and leaned down, kissed her bandaged cheek, rested my head on her shoulder, grabbed a hand, laced my fingers through them the best I could, and sobbed. I did not care who saw me. I cried like a baby.

I cried because she was hurt, I cried because I was happy she was back with me, I cried because I felt guilty for not protecting her, and, lastly, I cried for me. Why me? I am not sure yet, but I know I was selfish and did not care. I was where I wanted to be, sitting with my girl.

I felt a hand rub my shoulder, and I lifted my head to look up. Bob nodded at me, his eyes red, but he backed away and left the room. I guess he needed to go back to work and catch those who caused this.

'Theo, I have done all the surgery for the time being. I doubt you could operate while your mind is here. Two of the junior doctors are ready to go solo so that I might give them a chance. I will go in and guide them, but it is time we let some of them earn their keep. Stay here. Call if you need anything. The kitchen is fully stocked, and the bag of your clothes that you packed and took to Bob's is in the other room, so you can stay there for as long as you need. Look after our girl.!

those marriages never happened. Then, when Bethany caught her sister and husband and found out about their fake marriage, things started to click for me. In Cynthia's case, they were pretending to get married to get money out of the hotel. They had several hotels that would contact the women's club for a celebrant, and they paid them money to do marriages, and their fake one was typical of what was going on. Then Bethany gave her lawyer all that information that was just on Cynthia's side of this, and more dates linked up, and names became clearer. To top it off, some of the clients thought they were really getting married. But it does not stop at weddings, and all this started about thirty years ago when Wendy married the now congressman. The idea of fake weddings came up, and I believe her husband is part of all of this, as well as a few other well-to-do men; the celebrant may change the name slightly or the date of birth, like in Bethany's case, or not register it at all. Then you add in this new gang, and they are all tied into this. I am just missing a step. I have the ladies, all six of them, and their real husbands who are in on it, too, the celebrant and the head of the gang, but for some reason, I cannot figure out the end game. It has to be more than money and extortion, and something I have missed is still nagging at the back of my mind. Oh, and one of the precincts is in on this too, that detective who took Bethany in at some awful time at night and took her briefcase but never returned it. Luckily, she kept a second copy of them all, which I now have. I work with someone who is not in on it before I jump on the bent coppers. There is still a bit more to do, but I have a good crew working with me now, which is not part of the police force and is not biased. That was the most Bob had said in days, and I had a better idea of what was going on now. He filled in the pieces, and by the look on Robson's face, he already knew a lot about this.

'So Scott?' I asked, and he nodded. Scott was working for Bob to get to the bottom of this. When you can't trust those around you, who can you trust?

'Bob, what are you? I thought you were just a detective, but after seeing you in action, you are more than that, aren't you?' I asked, not able to let it go any longer.

'My girl sees me as her big teddy bear to hug, hold, and go to when needing comfort. No matter what, I am in the police force, I am still her Dad, and she only ever introduces me to her friends as either a police officer or a detective, and in some ways, the way she introduces me to her friends tells me how she feels about them. Those she had little to no trust in. I am a police officer. If she trusts you a little, I am the detective. 'But what are you?' I asked again, and Robson started to laugh.

'He is our police commissioner.' I am shocked. It never occurred to me that he was him, the big man. I know him as Bob, and maybe one day my future father-in-law, but he is a police commissioner; no wonder he could pull strings, and the other police officers deferred to him.

'Yes, I was a top detective in the other city and had been offered the commissioner job many times over the years, but after what happened to Bethany, I took the job. Part of accepting that job was to move here, and I needed to stay close to Bethany. Leaving Wendy was easy.

We had fallen apart years ago, and to be honest, I never paid much attention to her or Cynthia. I did try to help Bethany when I could, but Wendy often made it hard. Once I had moved here and looked deeper into my marriage, did I start joining the dots? I had not been able to join before. Don't worry, I am still Bob.' He chuckled.