CHAPTER 6

K ieran had been told that Marin would be there by Monday or Tuesday, but it was already Thursday, and Marin still hadn't been transferred to where she could meet her. Trying to get any work done had been difficult, and Kieran was now behind on everything because she couldn't focus on anything other than the fact that she had a twin sister out there somewhere and that she was about to go on trial for murder. When she'd tried to do some of her own research on both Marin May and Marin Smith, there had been nothing that she could find about the woman, not even an old high school yearbook photo or a social media presence, so she'd given up, deciding that she'd rather hear Marin tell her about herself instead.

After meeting up with her mother again to see if there was anything else she could remember, Kieran had spent her evenings researching her own origin story. It reminded her of the comic books she used to read with her father as a kid. She'd never been into superheroes the way he was, but she'd still enjoyed them. Then, he'd given her his entire collection for her sixteenth birthday when she'd wanted a car, so she'd thought it sucked at first, but she'd started to reread some of those comic books on her own one night as a bored teenager with no car and found that she liked them even more now that she was around the age of some of the characters. Their stories were oddly relatable, even though they often involved characters losing their parents young before discovering their superpowers and saving the world. Spiderman comic books had been her father's favorite, but he'd had some Superman as well, and those had been hers.

Now, it seemed ironic – if that was even the right word, which it probably wasn't since English hadn't been her best subject in school – that she'd liked Superman's origin story the most. He'd been found by his adoptive parents and raised on a farm in Kansas. Of course, he'd also discovered that he was actually an alien with superpowers, and, as far as Kieran knew, she was human and had none, but it was still strange to her that she'd always related to him and his story the most without ever knowing of her own adoption and missing twin.

Dylan had called her once more to tell her about the delay in getting Marin across state lines. There had been a paperwork mishap, which, Dylan had told her, occurred more often than not when transferring prisoners between jurisdictions. This whole time, Kieran had been waiting for the last possible moment before making the call she knew she needed to make: her sister would need an attorney. According to Dylan, Marin had used a public defender in Florida and would likely do the same here. Diego, though, was a high-priced defense attorney who handled criminal litigation for his firm, and now, as a partner, he would run the whole department as its head. He'd be much better suited for the job and might be able to help Marin in a way a public defender couldn't.

"Kieran? Everything okay?" he asked right away when he answered the phone, probably because she never called him these days.

"Hi. Not exactly," she said.

"Not exactly?"

"I have something to tell you, and it's going to sound weird, but it's true, and I need your help with it."

"Weird? What's going on?"

"Well, you know that I'm adopted."

"Yes," he confirmed.

"I just found out that I have a sister out there."

"Oh, that's great. She contacted you?"

"No," Kieran said, shaking her head now because she was explaining this wrong, but she also didn't know the right way to do it. "I put my DNA into the sample kit thing from work. It's free for employees, and I wanted to know if I had any blood relatives out there."

"Ah," he said. "And you have a sister? That's great."

Kieran still wasn't doing this right.

"I do. But I didn't find out through the site, actually. I found out because I got a call from the police saying my DNA matches an old murder."

"What?" Diego asked.

Now, she was getting somewhere.

"It turns out, they've been doing that thing where they try to track familial DNA through the–"

"Consumer sites? Yeah, I know. I've had a case where they did that. Shady business, in my opinion, but it works."

"My DNA matched the sample that they put into my work's database, which they weren't expecting. The detective called me and asked to talk. She thought I was my sister and that I'd changed my name and went on the run or something."

"That doesn't make sense. Your DNA wouldn't match your sister's completely."

"That's the thing, Diego… She's not just my sister ; she's my identical twin."

"What?" he asked a little louder. "How is that possible?"

Kieran reminded him of the story her mother had told her, that she'd shared with him after initially finding out that she'd been adopted, and then added the part that Dylan had discovered about another baby and the homeless woman. She finished by telling him the little that she knew so far that Dylan had revealed about Marin's life and the crime itself.

"She definitely doesn't think you did it, right? You've been cooperating, Kieran. You should have called me first. I could've advised you on what to do."

"I know. But she's only asked for fingerprints and my financial history."

"And you gave them to her?!" he asked.

"I didn't do this, Diego. And my fingerprints wouldn't be at that house. My financial history isn't anything to worry about. She thought I might have met Marin and would have helped her, but there's nothing there. And Dylan confirmed that I'm not a suspect. They're bringing Marin from Florida, where they found her, and she'll be arraigned. They know it's not me."

"Still. How many times have you seen me have to deal with something after a client didn't wait for me or call me first?"

Kieran sighed and said, "I know. It was a dumb move. But it's over now. Marin is going to be tried for this, though, and I was hoping you could represent her."

"You want me to represent a sister you don't even know?"

"She's still my sister. She's my twin , Diego. I don't know… I'm going to meet her, but I'd like her to have someone good at this, not just a randomly assigned public defender who's probably a year out of law school."

"Not all PDs are young or bad. Most of them are really good, actually. They choose that job. They just don't have the same resources I do."

"Well, I want her to have the resources. I'll pay your fee myself."

"What? No, you won't pay me. She's family."

Now wasn't the best time for Kieran to argue that they were no longer connected by marriage, so Marin wasn't his family, technically. She supposed, given their history, she and Diego would always be family, even without the piece of paper tying them together legally.

"I don't want charity, Diego."

"It's not charity for you . The firm does pro bono work. It looks good for us. I'll get this case added to the list, but I need to talk to her, the ADA, and anyone else to get all the details before I agree to represent her for trial. If this is an open-and-shut case, I can work on getting her a good deal, but I–"

"A deal? You already think she's guilty?"

"No, Kieran. I have no idea if she did it or not. I need to get the details of the case first, but sometimes, a deal is the best option, guilty or not, depending on the evidence. And you just told me they have DNA, so… I need to review everything."

"Yeah, okay. Sorry. I know that," Kieran replied. "I've just been a little overwhelmed about this whole thing. I don't understand how this could have happened. One day, two babies were dropped off in an alley by a church, and someone picked her up, and someone else found me. We've lived completely different lives because of that, and now, she's in trouble."

"Text me the name of the detective you've been talking to and the police department. I'll get my name added as Marin's attorney and find out where she is and when I can talk to her."

"Thank you," Kieran said, feeling a little bit relieved already. "Thank you."

"Of course. Want me to come over there? I'm not in court today, and I don't have another meeting for a few hours."

"It's okay. I'm still working. I just needed to know if you could help."

"Okay. Well, I'll find out what I can and call you back then," Diego told her.

Kieran hung up after saying goodbye, and just as she put her phone down on her desk, the doorbell rang. She wasn't expecting anyone and hadn't ordered anything for delivery, so she picked the phone back up before she stood and walked down the hall to the living room and the door, where she looked through the peep hole.

"Yes?" she said through the closed door to the woman who was wearing a business suit and had blonde hair pinned back into a tight bun, from what Kieran could see.

When the woman's beautiful blue eyes aimed right at the peephole, though, Kieran moved back instantly as if this stranger could see her staring through the peephole, despite the fact that Kieran knew she couldn't.

"Kieran Hart?"

"Um… Who is it?"

"My name is Carina Whitlock. I'm an assistant district attorney who has just been assigned to your sister's case."

"What?" she said, returning her eye to the peephole. "What are you doing here?"

"I'd like to speak to you, and I thought this would be less formal than my office."

"Speak with me about what?"

"Your sister's case," the woman repeated, shaking her head as if Kieran shouldn't have needed to ask that question.

"I talked to the detective already," Kieran retorted.

"Yes, Lieutenant Easton."

"So, why do I need to talk to you, too? I don't know anything about this."

"Ma'am, if you could open the door, I'm sure it would be easier for us to discuss this inside."

"I'm not inviting you in," Kieran stated.

"I'm not a vampire, if that's what you're worried about," the woman told her back.

Kieran laughed silently at that. That was funny. This woman was at least a little funny.

"I don't know. I'm sure there's a vampire lawyer joke out there somewhere."

"Usually, it's the sharks we get compared to. I think I know all the lawyer jokes by now."

"All of them?" Kieran said. "Seems impossible."

"Have you heard the one about the gator?"

"No," Kieran replied.

"A man walks into a bar with his pet alligator and asks the bartender if he serves lawyers there. The bartender says yes, so the man says, ‘Good. Give me a beer, and I'll have a lawyer for my gator,' Not bad, huh?" the woman asked.

Kieran hadn't heard that one before, and it was a little funny, at least, but she didn't laugh.

"What did you say your name was, again?"

"Carina Whitlock."

"I'll text that to my defense-attorney ex-husband, who will be representing my sister. He'll reach out to you for any questions you have for me."

"Miss Hart, you're not a suspect or a person of interest."

"I'm not even a witness," Kieran countered.

"God, you should have been a lawyer," Carina said, laughing. "You're not a witness, no. But I'm a very thorough prosecutor, and any good defense attorney is going to use your matching DNA against me at trial. They'll say that you did this, and there's no way to prove that you didn't, which gives the jury reasonable doubt. So, I'll need to talk to you prior to this going much further. You're welcome to have your attorney present when we chat; that's fine with me. You should keep in mind, though, that if your ex-husband is going to represent your sister, it could create a conflict of interest for him, in this case, representing your interests in our chats. He's required by law to ensure he does everything legally and ethically possible to represent your sister, which could mean accusing you of this crime."

"Diego wouldn't do that," Kieran argued.

"He wouldn't have a choice," Carina replied. "If you don't want to talk here, we don't have to. I know I just showed up on you. But we'll need to talk. If you prefer my office, we can do this there."

Kieran watched her bend down for a second before she felt something against her big toe. She looked down and stepped back, finding a business card at her feet. Carina had slid it under the door.

"Here's my information. Tomorrow would be good for me since things are moving pretty fast here after more than eight years of waiting. Have a good rest of your day, Miss Hart."

"Kieran," she corrected, staring at the door.

"Kieran. Call me Carina," the woman told her. "I hope to see you tomorrow."

When Kieran looked through the peephole again, Carina was gone.