Chapter Twelve #2
“We know you took your life to save Jo and Sophia,” Bishop said.
“You’re going to be missed, and I promise to take care of Ridge and Sophia for you.
I won’t let them fall apart without you.
I’ll step in, my sister. You can count on me.
I’ll remind Ridge every day that you loved him more than anything, too.
I know he’s going to mourn you for a very long time. ”
Honor brushed some hair from her cheek, and it made her so angry to know this was senseless.
It was cold and cruel.
“I’m going to miss you, Wyn. I’m sorry you died. I wish we could have saved you. You didn’t deserve this. Bish and I will find this person. We promise.”
As they stood there in the silence, Bishop blew her nose. She knew that the best thing she could do for the woman was to compose herself.
And get down to business.
Digging deep, she found that strength.
“Okay,” she stated. “I’m good. We’ve got this. We’ll see you on the other side, Wyn.”
Honor leaned down and kissed her on the cheek. Then, she did something surprising. She reached around her neck and pulled off the rosary she’d lost that morning and found again.
With tenderness often missing in her world, she put it in her friend’s hand.
“May God watch over you. We’ll tell your story here and get you justice.”
They both swore on that.
Bodhi headed back over, and he began zipping the woman back in, as Bishop pulled a phone out to get her fingerprints.
It was simple, fast, and it worked.
When she managed to get the phone open, she knew they needed to work on finding anything they could. Once she was cremated, they’d have to wait for the phone company to open the phone again.
“Can we work somewhere?” she asked. “In case we need to open the phone again?”
Bodhi nodded.
“Sure. Use my office.”
That worked for them.
Together, they headed in, and as they did, Bishop was flipping through the phone.
“See anything?”
She did.
“I have her calendar up, and in it, she had long-standing appointments with the doctor. It was Mondays at nine, and then, about four months ago, it went to Mondays at nine, and then Friday at three.”
Honor lifted a brow.
“Twice a week? She had to be falling apart if she was needing two appointments a week to work through the depression. She had to backslide at some point.”
Yeah, they agreed.
It was looking that way to them.
What wouldn’t they have done for their friend had she come to one of them and told them?
The answer was ANYTHING.
Closing out of the calendar, they found another app and wanted to take a peek into it.
The pharmacy.
Opening it, Bishop went in, and luckily, Wynter had saved her password to log into the prescription part of the app. They didn’t have to play ‘guess the password’.
It logged them right in.
As they did, Honor was continuing to take photos with her phone so they could document it and go back to review them after the phone was locked again.
That’s when Bishop found it.
“She was on Zoloft. It was prescribed by the good doctor,” she said. “There were two refills on it remaining.”
Honor whistled.
“That’s for pretty heavy depression. It’s also the same meds all the other women were on who died.”
Yes, yes, it was.
That alone screamed suspicious, and it wasn’t lost on either of them that Wynter had fit this detail, too.
“When was she picking it up?” Honor asked.
Bishop checked.
“She had a pickup scheduled for this morning. It’s filled and waiting for her at the pharmacy.”
Honor considered it.
“Maybe that’s why we couldn’t find any. Maybe she took her last pill yesterday, and threw out the bottle, knowing she would replace it today.”
Maybe.
All of this felt…off. Bishop couldn’t explain it, but her friend had gone through a lot of hoops just not to tell Ridge about her depression.
That was odd for her because Ridge was quite possibly the sweetest, kindest person she knew.
He’d never get angry.
So why all of this?
That was the question.
Closing that app, she opened the dead woman’s text messages next.
In them, she saw one from Ridge.
And it damn near broke her heart, too.
It was clear he’d written it sometime between her death and when they opened the phone.
She checked the time, and it was right after they left the office a little while ago.
“Jesus Christ,” Bishop said.
That had Honor’s attention.
“What?”
She showed her.
“Look.”
They read over the text together.
‘Wyn, I’m sorry. You’re gone now, and I don’t know how I’ll ever rebuild that connection to my heart again.
I lost my wife, and she was my everything.
I hope you didn’t suffer. I hope you can forgive me for not being there to save you.
I’ll forever hold that in my heart that I should have come home with you. I should have been there to save you.
Or die with you.
I know you’ll never read this, but I needed to put it out there. I failed in our marriage. I failed as your husband. I don’t think that will ever heal in me. Knowing that you had faith in me, and I let you fall, will destroy me forever.
I’ll see you when I cross. I’ll get Sophia handled, and then one day, I’ll find you again. I know you loved me with all of you, and I’ll love you each day now without you. There will never be another wife or woman in my world. Just our daughter.
I love you.
Ridge.’
Honor closed her eyes.
“I hate that he feels like he should have been there. This isn’t his fault. It’s neither of their faults. Only, I don’t know how we fix him. He’s not going to believe us.”
Bishop was aware.
Because of the circumstances, he’d always feel guilty. This was exactly why she didn’t understand why Wynter kept this from her husband.
He clearly loved her with all he had.
“Lucian and I will do our best. I meant what I said to her out there.”
Yeah, she believed her.
As she closed the message, she found another. It was from the doctor, and Bishop had to read it twice.
It was…off.
‘I enjoyed our meetup today. Same time next week at the spot?’
As soon as she read it again, her eyebrow went up, and her cop instincts kicked in. Why was a doctor texting a patient about enjoying their session?
What was there to enjoy?
Now, that cop suspicion turned on, and it went from zero to sixty in point five seconds.
“Uh, Honor?”
Her friend looked over.
“What?”
She showed her.
“Read it.”
When she did, Honor also had the same look on her face and had to reread it too.
That’s when she went there, and in the process, they both had that same epiphany.
“Why wouldn’t they be meeting at the office…?” she began and then stopped. “Oh, no.”
Bishop’s heart was pounding in her chest.
“We’re reading that wrong, right? There is no way I’m thinking that she was meeting the doctor someplace for something other than sessions, right? What is there to enjoy during a session from a man to his female patient?”
Yep.
This felt really foul.
Immediately, Honor started pacing the room as she fought to find a way that the text would be appropriate.
Only, she couldn’t.
“Bish, this is bad.”
She was aware.
Shit.
Shit.
Shit.
Now, Bishop had to go there.
It was shitty because Wynter was their friend, but the implications had to be dug into.
Unfortunately for them.
“Did we just accidentally stumble across an affair?” she whispered. “Did she meet him after you met with him?” Bishop asked the woman, knowing that Wynter had wandered around some time before heading home.
That much they knew from what she’d told them, and Ridge.
Honor was dumbfounded.
“I can’t think. I feel sick,” she admitted, not answering that because she couldn’t.
At the lack of answers, Bishop pulled out her phone, as Honor kept the other one from timing out and locking up again.
“Take pictures of that,” Bishop stated. “I need to check on something that just occurred to me.”
As her partner snapped photos of all of the texts, she began searching for something.
That’s when she found more evidence that this was about to go sideways.
Like ALL the way sideways.
Oh, holy fuck.
Wynter, what have you done?
On her phone, she saw the hours for the doctor’s office listed for yesterday, and every single Friday.
He closed early on Fridays at two P.M.
RELIGIOUSLY.
Now, Bishop started fighting for a way to rationalize all of this because it didn’t look good. She knew for a fact that Wynter headed out early on Fridays from work. She’d seen her when she’d been on maternity leave and at the office with Lucian.
She also knew that Julian had an end-of-week wrap-up meeting on Fridays at five before they all headed out. A meeting Ridge was ALWAYS at.
“What time did you guys hit the doctor yesterday to talk to him?” she asked, trying to get her bearings because they had to be mistaken.
Right?
Honor thought about it, and then to confirm it, she checked when her boss called them. At that same time she’d been with Wynter, she’d taken a call.
“It was almost one.”
She showed her the time on the call.
“How long were you in the appointment to talk to him?” she asked.
Honor shrugged.
“Twenty minutes max, and then, I headed out to do other things, and she said she was going to watch the shop. We went our separate ways.”
Yeah, and she’d told Ridge that she’d sat there for a while.
What if she hadn’t?
Bishop had been in the office when Ridge took a phone call from his wife. She’d been alone and could have done anything. Ridge RARELY left Lucian’s side during the workday.
That was a well-known fact.
Not only that, when Tori and Julian had been handing out assignments earlier in the day, Wynter had insisted she could handle interviews alone.
Was it so she didn’t have to ditch anyone because she knew where she had to be?
Oh, shit.
“Oh, we have a huge problem.”
Yes, yes, they did.
“We need to go speak to the doctor,” Honor said. “We need to get the truth before we say shit to anyone.”
On that, they both agreed.
The bottom line was that this was going to kill Ridge. If what they suspected was happening had gone down, his wife was cheating on him, and Bishop knew why.
There was only one glaring red flag that made her suspect Wynter’s breaking point.