CHAPTER 14

"I don't know what she's talking about. I was on the bus," Marin argued.

"But you weren't, Marin. I saw the footage. I watched it over and over again last night, and you're not on that bus. Could it have been another bus or a different bus stop? Carina said that the footage is something the public can request to see. Diego could get it. He'd just need to know what bus or bus stop to narrow down his search."

"I swear, it was that bus," Marin replied, looking down at her handcuffed hands.

"But could it have been a different bus?"

"I don't know… Maybe. I… Nick hit me that night. It was in the head. He'd tried to avoid my head most of the time because that was easier to see by other people, so he'd be more likely to get in trouble, but there was this torn-up deck outside the house, and a piece of wood came off it when he'd stepped on it on his way for a smoke. He got pissed and came inside to blame me for not fixing the deck, as if that was something I would've done. He swung the board at me, but I moved out of the way." Marin looked back up at Kieran. "The first time. Then, he hit me with it, and I don't know what happened after that. I woke up later, and it was still somewhat dark outside. He wasn't there. I remember feeling dizzy, and I think I threw up, but after I stopped the bleeding at the back of my head and put on a hat to cover up what he'd done, I just packed as fast as I could, and I thought I took that bus. I thought it was the ninety-two. I remember that bus stop."

"You had a concussion, didn't you?" Kieran asked. "You passed out, and you vomited after a head wound."

"Probably. Wouldn't have been the first. Anyway, a few days before all this, I'd gotten someone to get me those fake papers I told you about the other time. Luckily, I remembered to grab them, and Nick didn't come up while I was packing. If he did, I'd probably be gone."

"With a concussion, it's possible you got the bus or the bus stop wrong. Diego can look into it. I can look into it, if he needs help."

"You're sure I wasn't there? I think I was wearing a hat. Maybe you missed me?"

"You look just like me… Kind of hard not to spot myself on the video," Kieran replied.

"Maybe it was the twelve," Marin said.

"Huh?"

"The number twelve bus. I didn't take it often, but there's a bus stop another block over for the twelve. If I remember correctly, it crossed with the ninety-two somewhere, so I might have mixed them up. It went to the main depot."

"I'll look into it. But have you told Diego about the concussion?"

"No. Why?"

"Because he can use that to help you, Marin. If you're not on that bus or on this other one, you don't have an alibi, and he needs something to help you."

"I didn't do it," Marin told her. "I'm innocent."

"I understand. But innocence doesn't really matter now, does it? It's about what they can prove. And if Diego doesn't have anything to show that you weren't at the house or find another suspect, he needs to argue something."

"What? That I've been lying this whole time, and I did do it? I was just beaten up first, and then I shot him when he got home?"

"I don't know. I'm just trying to think of something." Kieran sighed.

"Well, think again, Picket Fence. I'm not guilty. I'm not going to prison for killing that asshole. I've survived a whole lot of assholes before him, and I plan on getting out of here to survive another few."

Kieran shook her head and said, "That's a pretty terrible outlook."

"Not for someone like me. Maybe for you, though. I didn't grow up with a mom and a dad who loved me and bought me a puppy or a kitten or something."

"But that doesn't mean that when you get out of here, you have to go back to the way things were. You have me now."

"My twin, yeah… Look, I get it, and I appreciate you trying to help, but while we may share blood and DNA and the same face, that's about all we share, isn't it? You weren't in nine homes by the time you were seven and thirty-two in all before you aged out of the system."

"Thirty-two? Why so many?"

"Ask the people who ran them. Sometimes, they were just temporary, to begin with. Other times, they were already overcrowded. I had a few families who fostered because they were good people, but when it came to deciding on whether to adopt, I was never at the top of anyone's list. Add a heart condition that required expensive meds that they'd have to pay for themselves if they officially adopted me, and you have the perfect mix for repeated abandonment."

"I thought you said you were okay now."

"I am. I still have to take a pill every day, though."

"I didn't know that. Are you getting them here?"

"Yes."

"And when you were on the run?"

"I had a fake script. When you marry a guy like Nick, you also meet all these criminal friends. The fake papers I got came with a fake prescription, which I used until I had solidified my new identity. Then, I went to the doctor at a free clinic there under that name, told him I'd lost all my records, and he gave me a legit prescription."

"He believed you?"

"In a community clinic with a waiting room overflowing with people? Yeah." Marin nodded with a laugh. "He examined me for all of five minutes, and when I knew what I needed, he signed the script, and I was gone."

"You've told Diego all of this, right?"

"He knows the whole sob story, yeah."

"Not the concussion thing, though."

"Not yet. I mean, I didn't go to a doctor after to be diagnosed with anything. I just cleaned up how I could and got on the bus."

"Tell him when he comes in after me, okay?" Kieran said. "He can help. He's really good at what he does."

"He's here?"

"Yes. He texted me that he was coming to see you, so I decided to stop by and tell you about the bus video in person. He should be in the waiting room by now."

"Get him in there, then," Marin told her. "It's almost dinnertime, and if I miss it, it's not like I can just raid the pantry later."

"Oh, okay," Kieran replied. "Do you need anything else? More money in your account?"

"I don't need your money, Picket Fence," Marin said, but then she seemed to sober. "But I'd appreciate it."

"I'll add more before I go," Kieran promised.

When she left the room, she let out a deep breath, feeling like that was the best meeting they'd had so far and thinking that there was a chance the next time would get even better.

"Hey, is she still in there?" Diego asked when she walked through the door to the waiting room.

"Yes, she asked for you. It's almost dinner, and she doesn't want to miss it. I'm going to put money in her commissary account before the desk closes, but, Diego, make sure she tells you the whole story of that day, okay?"

"What do you mean? I don't have the whole story yet?"

"He hit her with that board."

"The board they're saying is evidence because someone hit him with it?"

"That's what she just told me. He hit her with it, and she passed out. I think she got a concussion. You need to hear it all from her."

"Did she bleed?"

"She said so."

"They only found his blood on it, though."

"Maybe she didn't bleed on the board, but on the floor or somewhere else, and the place burned down, so they didn't find it."

"Shit. If she didn't do this, whoever did is smart to get rid of the evidence like that."

"I know. It's a bad situation all around. But she says she might not have been on the ninety-two bus now, and maybe it was the twelve. Can you request that footage?"

"Yeah, I can. I still can't believe you went over to the prosecutor's house and saw the other video before I did. What were you thinking, Kieran? She's prosecuting your sister."

"We're… sort of… maybe becoming friends, I think. It's complicated, but she said it wasn't unethical."

"It's on the border, though, isn't it? Like, right up to that line, with her toe hanging over it. She needs to be careful. So do you."

"If you don't bring up my DNA or me being a possible suspect in the trial, I won't need to be called as a witness, and there's not really a big conflict."

"Well, there's our problem because I can't find any other possible suspect. Yes, Nick dealt drugs and had some bad friends, but my investigators can't find a motive as to why any of them would want him dead. The opposite, actually, because he made them all money or had connections."

"Would you really accuse me of a murder you know I didn't commit?"

"First of all, I wouldn't want to, but you could provide reasonable doubt. Carina wouldn't charge you. Friends or not, she knows she wouldn't win that case."

"Are you that sure about that? If she does charge me, Diego, I'd be arrested. They'd put me in jail." Kieran motioned with her open hand. "They'd put me here. You'd represent me, I hope, but, God, I'd be here , and they might not give me bail, just like they didn't with Marin, and I'd be here for months or years only to have to sit through a trial to defend myself on some crazy charge."

"There might not even be a trial, Kieran. So, just calm down for a second."

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm here to tell Marin about a plea deal."

"A what?"

"The DA's office is willing to offer her voluntary manslaughter and drop all the other charges. She'd do ten years."

"Other charges?"

"Kieran, she's also charged with fraud for the papers and–" He stopped. "It doesn't matter. I need to talk to her about this."

"Ten years?"

"Yes, ten years. She could be out in five with good behavior. Then, she'd get paroled and do five years of probation where she couldn't leave the state, but after that, she'd be free. If she doesn't take this, though, and we go to trial, she's looking at life without the possibility of parole, and the fraud charges would remain. They'd come with an additional sentence, meaning, even if, somehow, we got the murder charge overturned on appeal, which is next to impossible, she'd still have to serve time on those charges. That time would be served consecutively, not concurrently for each charge, so she'd be looking easily at another fifteen to twenty years, depending on the sentence. This is not only the best deal I can get her; this is the best deal anyone could get her."

"But she didn't do it…"

"She says she didn't do it, Kieran. Right now, I have nothing to show for that. If there had been bus footage, we'd be having a very different conversation. I would have already been in front of a judge, telling them to release her and drop all charges."

"What if you can find her on the video for the other bus?"

"Same thing. Now, I have an obligation to bring this deal with a ticking clock to my client. Whether she chooses to take it or not, it's up to her. I will tell her that I'll look into the other bus, but even if I find her on that, there's nothing to stop Carina Whitlock from saying she just had someone do it for her and used the bus as her own alibi. So, I might still be back with a deal to propose."

"Can I go in with you? I just want to tell her to wait to take it until we know if she's on the video."

"I need to talk to her first, but I'll ask her if she wants you to join us, okay?"

"Diego, just don't let her take this without us knowing if she has a probable alibi," Kieran said.

"I can't tell her what to do. My job is to advise her. Besides, she's been insisting on her innocence this whole time. I doubt she'll even consider taking a deal. She seems hell-bent on having her story heard whether I tell her that's a terrible idea or not. She even wants to testify at the trial. I don't like to have the defendants testify, and she's quick to temper at times, so that worries me. Anyway, let me go do my job, and I'll see if she wants to talk to you after, okay?"

"Yeah, okay," she replied, feeling a little stuck between wanting to help her sister and not knowing how.

Thirty minutes later, after she'd put the money into Marin's account and was back in the waiting room, working on her phone, Diego came out with his briefcase. Kieran looked up and then locked her phone and tucked it away.

"She said no."

"To the deal?"

"And to seeing you right now. She said she was hungry and wanted to go eat."

"But she turned it down?"

"I got her to at least tell me that she'll think about it, but she said no first, and I don't see that thinking changing her mind. She insisted that she was innocent and told me the concussion story and about the other bus. I'm going to call my investigator now to get that footage. Let's just both hope that she's on it. Unfortunately, Carina can still claim that she paid someone. Marin has no real financial records, so I have no way of showing that a large sum of money didn't leave her bank account. Nick ran a criminal cash business. She could've offered them his money, for all I know. She also didn't have to pay someone at all. Nick was a bad guy. Maybe she just asked someone to do it for her, and they did it. I don't know who, but I'll keep looking for someone else who could have done this." His phone rang, and he looked down at it in his hand. "Now, I have to go because I'm behind on three other cases and about to get my ass handed to me by a senior partner for costing the firm money on a probably unwinnable case that gets us nothing."

Diego walked out of the room after saying hello into the phone and not saying goodbye to her. Kieran sat back down for a moment, trying to get her bearings a bit before going home.

"Visiting hours are over," the guard behind the plexiglass told her. "You need to go."

"Right. Sorry," she said, standing up and walking out with nowhere to go to.