I sobbed into the napkins. It was disgraceful. It was pathetic. I couldn’t stop crying. Yuki shook my arm like she was a terrier and my arm was a sock doll.

“Lindsay, do you think it’s serious? Maybe it just happened and he can get you to forgive him.”

By then Cindy had typed Freundorfer into her iPad and pulled up the benefit story. She held up the candid photo of Joe with his mistress looking adoringly into his face.

“Oh my God,” Yuki said. “Oh, Lindsay. I’m going to be sick.”

I loosed some fresh tears and then all of us were crying. It seemed a little less pathetic when we were all wet together, but still: Joe was having an affair, my baby and I were alone, and I wanted to die. Before I could drown myself in root beer, my blinking phone rang.

Was it Joe?

No. It was Brady. He was with Conklin.

I hugged and kissed my friends, then fled down the stairs.

Chapter 72

Chapter 72

I PARKED THE Explorer behind Brady’s unmarked sedan on the north side of Ivy, a one-way residential street in Hayes Valley dotted with trees and lined with ordinary single and multifamily houses built so close together there was no space between them.

Jacobi’s brown, shingled house was at the far end of the block, and although he had a garage that took up the ground floor, his black Hyundai SUV was parked on the street.

Jacobi had a black SUV — like half the law enforcement officers in California.

Brady and Conklin got out of the unmarked and Conklin got into the Explorer beside me.

Brady stooped down by the window, said, “We’ve had a team on him all day. He came in about an hour ago. Lights went on. He’s probably in for the night.”

“I take it you didn’t catch him killing anyone?”

Brady ignored my tone. “You and Conklin do four hours. Narcotics will spell you at eleven. If he leaves the house, call me.”

“Yes, sir.”

I watched Brady get into his car, then I pulled out my phone, saw three messages from Joe, and ignored them. I arranged dog-sitting for Martha, then leaned back.

I must have sighed. “So you ready to tell me what’s going on, Linds? I’m not going to leave you alone until you spill.”

My mind was still in high gear, boosted by my surging hormones and the whole crappy day.

“Have you cheated on Cindy?” I asked him.

His mouth fell open and he stared at me, a look of shock and disappointment on his face I hadn’t seen in all the years I’d known him.

“Why would you ask me that? Is that what she thinks? Did Cindy say that to you?”

“No. So, have you, Rich?”

“No. Hell no. Seriously, is this what you’ve been thinking? Is this what’s got you all jammed up?”