The concept kind of floored me. Most guys strayed when their wives gained weight. Tidwell seemed to be straying for the opposite reason. Maybe he felt threatened by her new look. She was a knockout.

I panicked when Tidwell stood to leave. He threw down a few bills, then started for the door, and I realized this night would be a complete bust. I was really hoping for a money shot to put this case to bed. With my optimism dwindling, I began contemplating my schedule to set up a second attempt when Tidwell stopped. His gaze locked on the front door. I looked past him and almost gasped at the raven-haired vixen walking through it. The moment our eyes met, Barry White started playing through the speakers overhead. The lights dimmed and a smoky, sultry kind of aura centered on the newcomer.

Coincidence? I think not.

Enter Cookie Kowalski. Loyal, stalwart, and just the right size. Cookie walked toward me, her expression a mixture of curiosity and hesitance. Surely she wasn’t worried I’d get her into trouble.

And she was dressed to kill. She wore a dark pantsuit with a long sparkling frock and a silver scarf opened at the neck to reveal her voluptuous attributes.

“You saucy minx,” I said when she sat beside me at the bar.

She grinned and scooted closer to me. “This is okay?”

I looked her over again. “It’s fantastic. And it definitely did the job.”

Tidwell sat back down at his table, interest evident in every move he made. I gestured toward him with the barest hint of a nod. She did a quick scan of the room and let her gaze pause a fraction of a second on Tidwell before refocusing on me.

But she still wasn’t convinced. “So, if you were a guy, would you be into me?”

“Hon, if I were a guy, I’d be g*y.”

“Yeah, me, too. So, what do I do?”

“Just give it a sec. He’ll probably —”

“The man at the table behind you would like to buy you a drink, darlin’,” Teri said. Her brows rose as she waited for a response. Sobriety clearly came late in life for her, but she was what my father would call a handsome woman, with long dark hair and striking hazel eyes. Still, she’d seen too many illicit rendezvous, complicated hookups, and bad one-night stands to be overly impressed. Experience had hardened her.

I could be hard. If I practiced. Gave it my all.

“Oh,” Cookie said, caught off guard, “I’ll take a whiskey sour.”

Teri winked and began practicing her magic.

“A whiskey sour?” I asked Cook.

“Your f-friend seems nervous,” Duff said, and I agreed with a nod.

Cookie stared ahead as though standing before a firing squad. “Liquid courage,” she said. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“That’s what they said about nuclear energy on Three Mile Island.”

She cast me a horrified look.

I fought a grin and tucked a small mic into the folds of her scarf, pretending to adjust it. “Look, all you gotta do is open the lines of communication. I’ll be able to hear everything he says.” I tapped my ear to indicate the receiver I was wearing. “Just see how far he wants to take things. Unfortunately, him buying you a drink does not prove infidelity.”

Her pallor turned a light shade of green. “I have to have sex with him?”

“What? No. Just, you know, see if he wants to have sex with you.”

“Do I have to make out with him?”

Oh, wow. I never realized how uneducated Cookie was in the ways of extramarital investigations. She was more of a behind-the-scenes kind of gal. I just figured she’d know what to do.

Teri set the drink down. Cookie grabbed it and took a long draw.

“Don’t do anything that makes you uncomfortable,” I said as she took another hearty swig. “Just try to get him to proposition you. Now, turn and offer him a salute. Let him know you’re interested.”

Before I could coach her further, she did exactly that. She turned to him, her back rigid, and saluted.

Jessica’s table of airheads burst out laughing. I closed my eyes in mortification and said through gritted teeth, “I meant lift the glass.”

“What?” she asked through equally gritted teeth. “You said to salute him.” She was starting to panic. I could feel it radiating off her in waves. “I thought maybe he was in the military.”

“It’s okay, just calm down.”

“Calm down?” She turned back around. “You calm down. I’m completely calm. I’m like deep water that’s deep and still.”

I wrapped a hand around her arm and squeezed to coax her back to me. She drew in a long breath and let it out slowly, forcing herself to calm.

“Better,” I said, giving her another minute to recuperate. “Okay, if he hasn’t penciled you in as a loony, go over there and strike up a conversation.”

“What? Me? What?”

“Cook, you can do this. It’s just like high school only without the socially crippling aftereffects of failure.”

“Right. High school.” She gathered up her courage, eased off her chair, and stepped to his table.

And she transformed. She became confident. A true mistress of her own destiny. I almost giggled in triumph while I took another bite and listened in.

“S-so, you’re s-setting him up?” Duff asked.

I wiped my mouth, then checked the recorder in my pocket to make sure it was set to record. It would suck if we went to all this trouble and ended up with no proof. “Not so much setting up as taking down. He’s the one trolling the clubs with the intention of cheating on his wife. We’re just giving him the opportunity and giving her the proof she needs to move on.”