Bria sucked in a breath. She knew that I’d killed them. And now, so did Dr. Ryan Colson.
“Given your job here, I’m sure that you’ve seen that particular injury, made with the same sort of blade, more than once over the years,” I continued in a calm voice. “Not only that, but the police officer responsible for investigating the crime, the one who had done such a shitty job of it, was also found dead around that same time. Also with her throat cut, although she was buried in a bombed-out warehouse. A few weeks later, your parents received an anonymous donation, enough to help them get their store up and running again.”
Colson’s fingers tightened on the papers, making them crackle. I wasn’t telling him anything that he hadn’t already guessed, but he deserved to hear it from me.
“Of course, none of this brought your brother back, and none of it lessened the pain of his loss. There are some things you just can’t unsee,” I said in a soft voice. “Just like you said. But if it helped at all, well, I think Ms. Blanco would have liked knowing that.”
Colson carefully smoothed out the papers in his hand, then raised his eyes to mine. I met his questioning, searching gaze with a steady one of my own. After a moment, his gaze flicked to Bria, then back to me again, as he mentally compared the two of us. He was a smart guy, and I knew that he’d figured out who I really was underneath the blond wig and glasses.
“It did help,” he said in a quiet voice. “As much as anything could. Thank you for answering my . . . questions.”
I tipped my head at him. “You’re welcome.”
Bria stepped up and held out her hand. Colson shook it, but he kept looking at me the whole time.
“Thank you, Ryan,” she said, dropping her hand back down to her side. “You don’t know how much this means to me.”
A faint grin lifted his lips. “Oh, I’m sure that I’ll find out sooner or later. I usually do when Ms. Blanco is involved.” He grabbed the envelope full of cash and tossed it over to her. “You can keep that, though. I don’t want it.”
Bria opened her mouth to protest, but I shook my head at her. We were still on thin ice, and I didn’t want him to change his mind about helping us.
“Well, then,” she said. “We’ll leave you to it.”
Colson moved over to the desk in the corner and started pulling on a pair of latex gloves, purposefully ignoring us. I snapped my briefcase shut and jerked my head at Bria. She slid the envelope full of cash into her back pocket, and we walked over to the door. I pulled it open, letting her step through first as I glanced back over my shoulder.
Colson was still standing at the desk, but he’d put his gloved, fisted hands down on the metal, as if he were propping himself up. His gaze was locked on a framed photo sitting on the corner of the desk—one of two boys laughing and sitting on a stoop in front of a store.
He realized that I was watching him. After a moment, he tipped his head at me. I returned the gesture, then let the door swing shut behind me.
* * *
We stepped back out into the front room.
Bria waited until the door had shut behind us before she turned to me. “Ryan told me once about his brother’s murder. He said that it was one of the reasons he decided to become a coroner. So he could help find answers for people about what happened to their loved ones. Give them some closure.”
“I can understand that.”
“I can’t believe that he agreed to help us,” she said. “I never thought he would, but then I didn’t know that you’d killed the people who’d murdered his brother. Was that your backup plan if he’d said no? Reminding him of that?”
I shrugged. “Someone that you helped returned the favor to me when Dobson was searching the Pork Pit. That got me thinking about Colson. He’s always been respectful to me whenever we’ve crossed paths. I wondered why, and then I remembered this particular job that Fletcher had sent me on. That’s why I brought the newspaper clippings.”
“But he said yes before that. You didn’t have to tell him any of that stuff about his brother.”
“Yeah. But he deserved to know, regardless of whether he helped us or not.”
We left the coroner’s office, stepped back out into the hallway, and headed down the corridor. Bria rounded the corner just as the elevator chimed out its arrival. My sister stopped, then lurched back, keeping me from entering the next hallway.
“What—”
“Emery’s here,” Bria hissed.
“Where is this place?” Emery’s voice boomed out.
“It’s right up ahead, ma’am,” a male voice murmured in response. “This way.”
Two sets of footsteps slapped against the floor, heading in our direction.
Bria stabbed her finger at my heels. I slipped off the shoes, then the two of us turned and ran back the way we’d come. Even though I was still wearing my disguise, we couldn’t afford to let Emery see us anywhere near the coroner’s office. At the very least, she’d report Bria’s presence to Madeline, who would realize that my sister had tried to influence the autopsy results and that I was still alive after all.
“Over there!” Bria hissed. “The stairwell!”
We reached the end of the hall and skidded to a stop, but the stairwell door featured the same kind of ID scanner that had been in the coroner’s office. Bria fumbled in her jeans pocket for her card.
In the distance, I could see shadows sliding across the floor, growing larger and larger as Emery and her escort headed this way. Another thirty seconds, and they would round the hallway corner and see Bria and me standing at the far end.
Twenty seconds . . .
Bria yanked her card out of her pocket.
Fifteen . . .
She slid it through the scanner, but the light stayed red.
Ten . . . seven . . . five . . .
Bria muttered a curse and ran the card through the reader again. The light turned green, and she yanked the door open.
Three . . . two . . . one . . .
We stepped into the stairwell, the door swinging shut behind us, just as Emery appeared at the other end of the corridor, along with a uniformed officer.
Bria started up the stairs, but I grabbed her arm and yanked her back against the wall with me.
“Wait,” I whispered.
Sure enough, a few seconds later, a shadow moved in front of the narrow glass strip in the door, as though someone was peering inside to see if anyone was going up the steps.