Page 1 of The System

CHAPTER 1

DNAdiscovery.com wasn’t where she’d thought she’d end up, but they’d been hiring, and she’d needed a new job. At thirty-five, she’d been around the software engineering world for a long time now, and it had always seemed to be a young person’s game. As Kieran aged, it was getting more and more difficult for her to find a job as an engineer because employers expected her to want to be a manager by now, but she didn’t want to be in management. She loved coding, and that would never change. After leaving her husband, she’d kept her job at a local company for a while, but after their divorce was finalized, she’d started looking for something else.

Kieran had needed a fresh start, and that had included ending a marriage, finding a new place to live, and looking for a new job. The job had taken a while to find, but once she’d managed to get one, she’d been excited for the first time in a while. She was a senior staff engineer now and made forty thousand dollars more than she had at her last job. Her divorce settlement was modest because she hadn’t wanted to take Diego for everything he was worth. Their separation had been amicable, so while they weren’t exactly friends, they didn’t mean any ill will. With that settlement and her new salary, Kieran had been able to get herself a nice two-bedroom place in a small town and use the second bedroom as her office instead of going into the company’s office. Grateful she and Diego had never had children, she had no need for the second bedroom to be anything else.

Her first day on the job had been simple enough. She started her new-hire orientation and training and got her systems set up. She had three monitors and the screen on the laptop the company provided. Kieran preferred to have at least two monitors, one vertical and one horizontal, and she’d spent an entire day connecting everything together and making her office exactly what she’d always wanted. In their house, which had been a three-bedroom, Diego had had an at-home office, and they’d used the other bedroom as a guest room. Kieran had worked at the office most of the time because when she wanted to work from home before, she’d been forced to use the kitchen. Finally, after years of wanting more for herself, she’d gone out and had taken what she’d wanted. Being on her own for the first time in her adult life felt good, too. It was lonely, yes, but it was the kind of lonely she thought she needed to feel like herself again.

Diego hadn’t been a bad husband. When they’d first started dating in college, he’d been an attentive and loving boyfriend. When he’d gone to law school a state away and she’d gone to graduate school, they’d kept in touch but hadn’t been exclusive. Of course, he’d met other women and had had short relationships, while Kieran hadn’t found anyone else who was interested in a nerdy coder girl who liked video games and not much else if it didn’t involve a screen. Three years after parting for their respective schools, they’d met back up one day for coffee, and they’d been together ever since. He’d been her first and was still her only, but after their first few years of wedded bliss, things had started to change between them. Diego had moved up at his law firm and seemed to want the kind of wife the other lawyers had, which wasn’t Kieran. He’d also spent more and more time at the office and less and less with her, to the point where she’d assumed he’d been having an affair. He hadn’t been – or, at least, he’d sworn that he hadn’t. He just had to work because the more billable hours he got for the firm, the faster he’d make partner.

That had been all he cared about until, one day, he’d asked her about children. That had been around Kieran’s thirtieth birthday, and she’d been surprised to hear him bring that up because they’d both said they didn’t want kids. There had been a talk, then a fight, which had been followed by another talk and several more fights. He’d expected her to not only have their children but to be their primary caregiver since he had to work so much. When Kieran had asked where this had all come from, he could only mention other associates at work who were starting to have families.

“So, you just want to be able to say you have children, but you don’t want to actually have children?” she’d asked one day. “You want me to be here to take care of them all by myself while you just put their pictures on your desk so that you can look good to the partners?”

“That’s not it, Kieran,” he’d argued.

“We said we didn’t want kids,” she’d reminded.

“Things change. We’re getting older,” he’d tried.

The argument had repeated over and over until finally, Kieran had told him that she wouldn’t have his kids, and if that was a problem for him, they’d have to figure something else out. He’d said it was fine, and they hadn’t talked for the next several days. That had been the beginning of the end, and after she turned thirty-three, she had told him that she wanted a divorce. When they legally separated, he’d moved out of the house and into an apartment closer to his office, and Kieran had started looking for another job. Then, when they’d finalized everything, she’d let him have the house. She hadn’t wanted it anyway. It had too many memories of a relationship she wanted to leave in the past.

It hadn’t been that easy for Diego, though. He hadn’t wanted the divorce. Kieran had known that, but she’d fallen out of love with him and couldn’t see a way back. Before the separation, there had been marriage counseling and a book that she’d read on her own, but nothing had worked; the feelings just weren’t there anymore. After all those years together, she had made the decision to leave, and she stood by it despite how much she knew it hurt him. Now, Diego could move on, too, and he’d recently made partner at his firm, which meant that they were both on their way to their separate fresh start.

“Hey,” she said when he called around nine after her first day at her new job.

“Hey. How was it?” he asked.

“Just the usual training. I also had to take the sexual harassment course, which was an hour long, and then I got my email account set up. That kind of stuff.”

“Do you like it so far?”

“It’s hard to tell. It’s mainly been me doing training. Everything okay?” she asked him.

“Yeah, everything’s fine. I just got home and thought I’d call.”

“Diego, we–”

“Before you remind me that we’re divorced yet again, I only called to tell you that I found some of your stuff in the basement. I was just making small talk before I told you. That’s all. I needed some old case files that were down there, and I came across a few boxes that belong to you. It looks like your dad’s stuff that your mom gave you when he died.”

“His old baseball stuff?” Kieran asked, trying to remember if she’d brought that box with her in the move.

“I only opened one box, but yeah, I’m pretty sure I saw one of those baseball card book things in there.”

“I thought I brought all that with me.”

“Well, it’s still here. I can bring it over this weekend, if you want. It’s fine here, if you want to leave it, but I can bring it over.”

“I can pick it up.”

“You won’t be able to fit everything in that tiny car you drive. His old bat bag is here, and there are at least four boxes.”

Kieran’s father had been a college baseball coach and had played in the minor leagues for a few years, on his way to the majors, before a shoulder injury had sidelined him, and he’d moved into coaching. A lifelong fan of the sport, he’d collected baseball cards since he’d been a kid, and when he’d passed away from cancer six years ago, her mother had given Kieran all of his old baseball stuff.

“I have the SUV. Just let me bring it over for you,” Diego added. “It’s not that long of a drive anyway, and we could catch up.”

“About what, Diego? We just talked last week.”

“Your new job. I can tell you about the partnership. I’ll bring lunch or something. Tacos. You love those pork tacos.”

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