Ryan’s eyes narrowed, his face tightened, and he studied my sister in a new light. “I don’t take bribes, Bria. Everybody else around here does, but not me. Not for any reason. I didn’t think you were like that either.”

“And I thought that you might make an exception this one time. Please, Ryan. We’re friends. I really need you to do this for me. I just want to bury my sister as quickly as possible. That’s all.”

That wasn’t all, not by a long shot, and he could tell that she was lying. He stared at her, obviously torn between giving in to her plea and telling her where to stick that envelope of cash. From what Bria had told me, the two of them respected each other and had a great working relationship, but he was also an honest man, one of the few good ones in the entire building.

I didn’t like using him this way, asking him to do something so underhanded, something that went against his beliefs, but I didn’t have a choice. Not if I wanted time to plot against Madeline. But just because I wanted to get her didn’t mean that I was going to hurt innocent people to do it. If the coroner wouldn’t do what we wanted, then so be it. We’d figure out another way.

“No one will question your findings,” Bria continued, trying to convince him. “My sister went into her restaurant, and she never came back out again. Dozens of witnesses support that.”

“But she’s a powerful elemental. If anyone could have survived the fire, it would have been Gin Blanco . . .” Ryan’s voice trailed off, and I could almost see the wheels spinning as he thought about the implication of declaring me dead. “But you actually . . . want this body to be your sister. Why would you want something like that to be true?”

Bria must have been taking acting lessons from Finn because she pinched the bridge of her nose, as if she were fighting back tears. “Because it is her. You’ve heard all the rumors about Gin and Dobson and the bull pen.”

Ryan winced again.

Bria dropped her hand from her face and stared him down. “I can’t do anything about all of that, but I can do this one last thing for my sister. I want you to expedite things so I can bury her as soon as possible. That’s what she would have wanted. Not this . . . circus. Besides, I know that you’re getting . . . pressure to perform the autopsy so you can give your findings to certain . . . interested individuals.”

For a moment, I almost thought she had him, but her last, not-so-veiled reference to Madeline hardened his resolve.

He straightened up and crossed his arms over his chest. “I don’t hurry my work, and I certainly don’t falsify it.”

Bria’s lips tightened into a thin line. She opened her mouth to argue with him, but he held up his hand, cutting her off.

“But your sister . . . helped me once. Did a . . . favor for my family. At least, I think that she did. So I’ll go ahead with the autopsy. I’ll say what you want me to, Bria. Giving myself enough wiggle room to backtrack later, of course.”

She nodded at him. “Of course.”

Bria looked at me, obviously wanting us to leave before he changed his mind, but I wasn’t quite ready to go yet.

“Actually, I have something for Dr. Colson,” I said. “Something that might answer some of his questions. About Ms. Blanco.”

I reached into my briefcase and pulled out several old newspaper articles that I’d had Silvio look up online and print out for me. Puzzled, Bria took the papers from me and handed them over to the coroner.

At first, he frowned, but as he read the sheets and the words sank in, his eyes widened, and his mouth silently dropped open into an O. Then he came to the last sheet, which featured a news photo of a grief-stricken young man clutching the bloodstained body of his kid brother to his chest.

His fingers dug into the paper, crumpling the edges, and his head snapped in my direction. “Where did you get . . . how did you know . . .”

“Several years ago, your younger brother Roy was murdered,” I said. “Shot by some gangbangers during a robbery of your parents’ grocery store. The police did very little to investigate the crime, but the perpetrators were found soon after, all of them with their throats cut.”

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.