Page 6 of The System

“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.

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