CHAPTER 3

"T his isn't me," Kieran said, pointing to the picture.

"It sure looks like you," Dylan noted. "And the DNA you put into DNAdiscovery.com is a match for the DNA found at the scene."

"You said it was a husband that was killed? I've been married once . And I just left my ex-husband at his house, the one we used to share, which is very much not burned down. He's thinking of adding a gym, for crying out loud."

"Kieran, I've got a dead man and a missing woman who has your DNA. If you're saying it's not you, that's fine. We can fingerprint you to compare with what's on file. We have those, too. That'll clear things up."

"Wait… You want to take my fingerprints? I'm not a criminal . I'm a software engineer. I've gotten one speeding ticket in my entire life when I was seventeen, and I paid it. Like I told you on the phone: no more speeding tickets in the past several years."

"Fingerprints could exclude you if–"

"Oh, my God…" Kieran interrupted the woman and covered her mouth.

"What?"

"I'm adopted," she revealed. "It's why I did the DNA thing to begin with. My parents told me about six years ago. Well, maybe seven by now. I don't know any of my blood relatives. I only did this to see if there were any out there. Like I said, I haven't even gotten the results myself yet. Oh, wait… It would've gone to my personal email, and I haven't checked that one for a few days." Kieran pulled her phone out of her pocket and opened the app. "Shit. It's right here that my results are in. I've got sixteen connections. Jesus! Sixteen?"

"You were adopted?" Dylan asked.

"Yes, as a baby."

"Well, even a sibling wouldn't be a near-one-hundred-percent match. That still doesn't–" Dylan paused. "Unless you were a twin."

"A what?" Kieran asked.

"Identical twins share DNA," Dylan explained. "Fingerprints are different, though."

"So, you're saying that you think I have a, what, an evil twin out there somewhere?"

"Unless you knew Nicholas May," Dylan stated. "And had spent time in his home."

"I don't know who that is."

"Then, we need to talk to your biological parents."

"No one knows who they are," Kieran replied.

"There would be adoption records, even if they were closed. We can open them for you if we–"

"I was a safe-haven baby," Kieran told her. "Well, sort of. I was found in an alley next to a church by a dumpster, of all things. So, if my birth mother was trying to get rid of me, she missed both the church and the dumpster. My mom was a social worker. She and my dad had been trying to have a baby. They adopted me."

"And there wasn't a second baby?" Dylan asked.

"No," Kieran said, shaking her head.

"Can you give me the location where they found you?"

"It was St. Joseph's in Hobart's Bluff. That's about an hour–"

"I know where it is," Dylan said. "Can you wait here for a minute?"

"Should I call my ex-husband? He's an attorney, like I told you, but he's also very much alive and can tell you that we were married for close to ten years and divorced recently. I have no idea who Nicholas May is. Or, was , I guess. I certainly wasn't married to him. I definitely didn't kill him."

"Let's hold off on that," Dylan suggested. "I didn't know you were adopted. I did do my research on you before I called you, so I know about Diego Hart. I reviewed some other things in your history as well. I just needed to see you myself to know for sure. But DNA doesn't lie, as they say, so let me look into a few things. Would you mind sticking around? You're not being held and are free to go at any time, but I think we can sort this out if you hang out for a while."

"Yeah, okay," Kieran said. "I don't want you to show up at my doorstep, trying to arrest me, so I'll stay."

"Great. Thanks," Dylan replied, rising from the table.

She left Kieran in the room, and Kieran stared down at the photo of the woman who looked just like her but wasn't her. Then, she looked up at the mirror, which was likely a two-way mirror. Was she being watched right now to see her reaction to being accused of murder? Was Dylan Easton standing there already, trying to see if she looked guilty? Kieran wasn't sure, but she pulled out her phone and typed a text message to Diego. She didn't hit send, but she wanted to have it ready in case she needed him here after all.

"Okay. Sorry, I'm back," Dylan said about an hour later. "Did they offer you something to drink?"

"An officer asked me if I wanted something, yeah. I'm okay, though."

Dylan sat down across from her again, holding on to another folder.

"I still need more time to go through this with a fine-tooth comb, but I wanted to share with you what I've found so far."

"Okay," Kieran said, tired now. "Do you know I'm not some killer now, at least?"

Dylan laughed and told her, "I had an officer check you out more fully while I was looking into something else. And yes, you are who you say you are. The adoption was also something I could track. Your parents are listed on your birth certificate, but since your mother worked for DCFS, I could find the record of her adopting you pretty easily. Anyway, that's all square. Now, we have the other part of this." Dylan opened the folder and looked down at a piece of paper there. "It looks like you were lucky, Kieran. You were found by someone who worked for the church when they were taking out the trash, and your parents adopted you officially just a few days later. That part is clear. The somewhat unclear part is what I still need to look into more, but it looks like there was another infant discovered there."

"Sorry? They discovered two babies? How did my parents not know that?"

"Well, this is where it gets tricky. You were discovered by the person who worked at the church. Your twin sister was picked up by a homeless woman who had been known to authorities as having some mental troubles. St. Joseph's borders another town, and she took the baby there, which is in another jurisdiction. It looks like she had the baby for only about a week. Then, she died of a drug overdose, and the infant was found by someone else, taken to the hospital, and ended up in the system."

"So, it's true? I have a twin?"

"Appears to be the case," Dylan replied. "I found the story online before I found the record of the baby being admitted to the hospital and then put into the system. I was able to track her from there. Her name is Marin May now, but she was Marin Smith then. They didn't have a name for the birth certificate, so they named her after the county she was found in, Marin. And Smith is better than Doe, I suppose." Dylan then handed Kieran a piece of paper. "Anyway, she aged out of the foster care system at eighteen and married Nick May at twenty-two. He was killed about eight years ago, which is why my team has been put on the case. I only handle cold cases."

"And you think she murdered her husband?"

"Well, we'd like to talk to her about it, at least. Her DNA and fingerprints would be in the house they shared, but we have some DNA on a board we believe was used to hit him before he was shot, and that wasn't something that would normally just be around someone's house. I can't tell you more than that, but suffice it to say, I don't have any other suspects, and your sister has been arrested before. Misdemeanors, so we don't have her DNA in the system, which is why I've been searching for familial relationships, hoping to find her through those connections. So, I need to ask you a question, Kieran. You seem genuine right now, but I need you to be honest with me. Have you had any contact with Marin May?"

"I just found out in this room that Marin May existed," she replied. "I just found out that I have a sister… That I have a twin."

"Okay. Okay," Dylan said with a nod. "Well, I need to find her, so I'm planning on reaching out to some of those sixteen contacts DNAdiscovery found for you."

"I have sixteen connections," Kieran said mostly to herself.

"From what I saw, they were distant relations."

"Not my birth parents?" Kieran asked.

Dylan shook her head and said, "No. They were very distant cousins, mainly. It's possible you'll be able to figure out who your birth parents were that way, though. That's my plan because I need to find Marin."

"If they dumped us in an alley, odds are, they didn't want us and wouldn't respond if we tried to reach out, right?"

"Who knows? Maybe it was a scared teenager, and she tried to get you to the church. One baby would be a lot. Twins would be another story. Either way, you're free to go."

"That's it?" Kieran asked. "I'm just supposed to go home with this information and do what?"

"I don't know, exactly. You can try to find her. But if you do, I need you to tell me. I need to talk to her."

"You need to arrest her," Kieran remarked. "But what if she didn't do it?"

"She's a person of interest in the crime, so I still need to talk to her," Dylan replied. "It might end up in an arrest, and she'd have the opportunity to defend herself in court, if that's the case."

"Court? So, I'm supposed to help you find a sister I never knew I had and put her behind bars?"

"You wouldn't be putting her behind bars, Kieran. But if you find her and you help her evade the authorities, you could get into trouble. There's been a warrant out for her arrest since the crime."

"So, that mug shot you showed me was from before it happened, then?"

"Yes," Dylan replied. "She was arrested twice: misdemeanor pot possession and a DUI."

"So, she's a druggy, too?" Kieran asked. "A killer and a druggy? That's what you're telling me?"

"We don't use the word ‘druggy.' You should know that it was a misdemeanor and pot, not a harder drug with an intent to sell, which would've brought it up to a felony. This was before it was legal, and today, with the amount she was found with, she wouldn't even be breaking the law."

"And the DUI?"

"I can't offer you much help there." Dylan shrugged. "Her blood alcohol level was over the limit, and she was swerving, but she didn't hurt anyone."

"But she might have killed her husband?"

"I should let you get back to your Saturday," Dylan dodged the question. "Before you leave, though, you'd really be helping me out if I could still get those prints. If we do find her, which I hope we do, any good defense attorney is going to say that she has a twin. And while it's completely unbelievable to think that Marin didn't do this but you, somehow, did it when you didn't even know she existed, your fingerprints would ID you as you and not as Marin pretending to be you. It's just us crossing Ts."

"But they'd be on file then, right? Like, forever?"

"Yes, technically." Dylan nodded.

"I don't know… I didn't do this, obviously, but I've seen a lot of people my ex-husband has represented make stupid moves that got them into trouble, and I don't want to get into any trouble here."

"You won't. But I understand," Dylan said. "Call him, if you want, and get his thoughts on it."

"You know what? Just do it. I'm really confused and overwhelmed right now, but I don't have anything to hide."

Kieran knew she should call Diego. She was certain that several of his clients over the years had probably said the same thing, and they'd gotten arrested shortly after, but she'd had nothing to do with this crime or any other and didn't plan on committing any in the future. A call with Diego would mean him coming here and making a big deal about it, so if providing her prints would get her out of this room and back at home, where she could process everything that was happening, she'd do that and hope for the best.

"Great. Thanks, Kieran. I really appreciate it. I'll have you work with an officer and take those for me."

"Then, I can go?"

"Of course," Dylan said.

"Will you… I don't know. Will you maybe keep me up to date on things, at least? Like, if you find her or if someone you talk to knows where she is?"

"It's not exactly procedure," Dylan said on a sigh. "But I can give you a call. I suspect, we'll find her soon enough. We had DNA at the scene; we just didn't have hers to compare it to and know for sure that it was hers. Now that we have yours, we can run it in the system and see if she's been arrested again or provided her DNA under any other circumstance. When I saw your result last night, I looked you up, and at first, I thought you were her, trying to hide in plain sight. Then, I did a little more research and figured that you probably weren't, but I had to be sure."

"How did you find my results specifically, though?"

"Of those sixteen connections, I'd be one of them, I guess. Well, Marin would be, technically. We do this sometimes when we try to find family members. I created an account as someone else and loaded in the DNA we had from the scene, which is likely Marin's, given what we know now. I did this for several sites but hadn't gotten any results. Then, this week, I put it into DNAdiscovery and found a few. I was going to follow up with everyone starting on Monday, but I saw your results come in, and… Well, you know the rest."

" Do I?" Kieran asked. "I feel like I know nothing at all. I need to call my mom, if that's okay."

"Sure. Let's get the fingerprints taken care of, and I'll walk you to your car."

"Yeah, okay," Kieran let out, feeling like she would've said yes to just about anything that Dylan asked of her, given her state of shock at today's events.

Sure, Dylan was trying to arrest her sister, apparently, but she also seemed honest and trustworthy and had been upfront with Kieran for this entire bizarre conversation.

Kieran followed Dylan over to an officer standing by a computer, and he instructed her on how to place her fingers on a pad that digitally transferred her fingerprints to the computer screen. That experience made her feel like a criminal herself, but Dylan was there telling her that she appreciated her help, so that made her feel just a little bit better. Then, Dylan walked her out to her car and told her that she'd be in touch.

Sitting in her car, staring at the police station in front of her, Kieran was unable to move, though.

"I have a sister," she said to herself.