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I shrugged. “Ask and find out.”

He shook his head again. “No,” he said, “no.”

“Then don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to,” I said.

“Don’t ask, don’t tell,” he said.

I nodded, again. “Exactly.”

He gave that roguish, I-know-something-you-don’t smile. “But we get to keep the ten grand.”

“For now. If Evans agrees to see the evidence, we’ll need a bankroll.”

“Is he that expensive?”

“He risks his sanity and his life every time he touches another clue. I’d make people pay for that, wouldn’t you?”

A light came into Bert’s eyes. “Does he have a business agent?”

“Bert,” I said.

“Just asking, just asking.”

I had to shake my head and give up. Bert had a real genius for making money from psychic gifts that other people thought of as curses. Would it be so bad if he could help Evans make more money? No. But I wondered if Bert understood that Evans was one of the most powerful touch clairvoyants in the world. That to brush against another person with his fingertip told him more about that person than most people would ever know. Bert would probably offer to shake hands, and the deal would be off. I only suspected what Bert was. One touch, and Evans would know for sure. In a way, if Evans didn’t run screaming it would be reassuring for me. I would never offer to shake hands with Evans. One, you never offer your hand to a touch clairvoyant, just bad form. Two, Evans had brushed up against me before, by accident, and he hadn’t liked what he saw. Who was I to throw stones at Bert, when he might pass Evans’s radar unscathed, and I knew that I would go down in bloody flames?

32

THE REST OF the afternoon appointments were damned boring compared to the Browns. Thank God. Nathaniel sat, quietly, in a corner of my office through all of them, just in case. Bert didn’t argue now. I’d had two appointments with lawyers to discuss wills and other priviledged material. They’d objected to Nathaniel, but I’d told them that legally the conversation with me wasn’t priviledged, so why did they care. Legally, I was right, and lawyers hate for a non-lawyer to be right. Or at least the ones I meet get cranky about it. So then, they’d wanted to know who he was and why he got to sit in on their meetings.

I told the first one, do you want this meeting, or don’t you, and he let it go. The second one didn’t let it go. My fingers hurt where I’d torn off the nails. My face hurt even if it was healing. My pride was hurt from having sex in the office. I was not happy, so I told the truth.

“He’s here in case I have to have sex.” I smiled when I said it, and knew that it didn’t reach my eyes, but I didn’t care.

Nathaniel had laughed and done his best to turn it into a cough.

The laywer, of course, didn’t believe me. “It was a perfectly legitimate question, Ms. Blake. I have every right to protect my client and his interests. You don’t have to insult us with ridiculous lies.”

So I stopped insulting him with lies, and we got down to business.

Every client, or group of clients, had to ask about Nathaniel. I told them he was everything from domestic help, to lover, to office boy, to personal assistant. Nobody liked any of my answers. I stopped caring long before I stopped seeing clients. I actually started telling the truth again, and the two new groups that I told it to got insulted. Insulting lies, they called it. Try to tell the truth, and no one believes you.

What I’d wanted to talk about all afternoon had been my beast. I had a lycanthrope right there, and we didn’t get five minutes of peace to even begin the discussion. I had so many questions, and no time to ask them. Maybe that was why I was so grumpy to the clients. Maybe, or maybe I’m just grumpy. Even I wasn’t sure sometimes.

It was seven o’clock by the time we climbed into the Jeep. Bert had passed my 7:30 cemetery appointment on to Manny without me having to ask. He even apologized for overbooking me. He always overbooked me, and he’d never apologized before. I think the realization that I could call a vote and get his