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“Not yet.”

He looked up, hope showing momentarily in his pale eyes.

“Don’t get excited. It’s a slender little hope, but if it helps lead to something that can help the police then we’ll have earned some money. If it doesn’t, then we can return the money.”

“Do I want to know what your plan is?” What he was asking was, was it illegal, and did he not want to know so he’d be able to deny it later. Bert knew that I stepped over lines that wouldn’t just get jail time, but an execution notice. I knew that he was just this side of a con-man, a swindler, but he knew, or suspected, that I was just this side of a cold-blooded killer. There were bosses that couldn’t have handled that doubt, or that almost knowledge. We stood and met each other’s eyes, and we had an understanding, Bert and I.

“I’m going to see if the cops will bring down some of the boy’s clothes for Evans to look at.”

“The touch clairvoyant that tried to cut his own hands off?” He made a face when he said it.

“He’s out of the hosptial,” I said.

He frowned. “But didn’t the paper say that he tried to cut off his hands so he wouldn’t see murders and violence every time he touched something?”

I nodded.

“Anita, I never thought I’d say this, but leave the poor guy alone. I’ll give back the money.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. Was he being nice to fool me? Did he mean it? Out loud, I said, “Evans is feeling better than he has in years. He’s taking active clients again.”

Bert looked at me, and it wasn’t an entirely friendly look. “This man has tried to kill himself to keep from seeing these things, and you want to take items from a serial killer case where he cut up a nice teenage couple. That’s cold, Anita, that’s truly cold.”

“Evans put himself back on the market, Bert, I didn’t. He’s married now, and he’s a lot more relaxed than he ever was before.”

“Love may be grand, Anita, but it doesn’t cure everything.”

“Nope,” I said, “it doesn’t.” What I didn’t try to explain to Bert was that Evans’s new wife was a projective psychic null. She negated most psychic abilities within yards of her. Evans was a lot calmer around her. She truly had saved him.

His small pale eyes narrowed at me. “That man out there, the boy, he’s your boyfriend.”

I nodded.

“Just your boyfriend?” he made it a question.

“What else could he be, Bert?” And it was my turn to have the innocent face.

He shook his head. “I don’t know, but the noises from your office were a hell of a show, and that was without any visuals.”

I didn’t blush, because I was working too hard at keeping control of my face and eyes. “Do you really want to know, Bert, or do you want deniability later?”

He stood there for a moment, thinking, then shook his head. “I don’t need to know.”

“No,” I said, “you don’t.”

“But you’d tell me the truth, if I wanted to know?” he asked.

I nodded.

“Why, why would you tell me?”

“To watch your face,” I said, and my voice was soft, and not altogether pleasant.

He swallowed hard and looked just a little paler than his untanned face had a moment before. “It would be something bad, wouldn’t it?”

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