Page 20 of The System

“It’s possible,” Carina confirmed.

“I was kidding,” Kieran added, looking concerned now.

“Kieran, my job is to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that someone has committed a crime, and in this particular case, you present an obvious other suspect. The police will want to talk to you again, and maybe more than once. I’ll also need to talk to you again. You will probably be called to the stand. And Mr.Hart here has a massive conflict of interest that he doesn’t want to admit to you.”

“I can–”

“Diego, you should go,” Kieran interrupted. “She’s right.”

“I’m not even Marin’s attorney yet. I’d much rather make sure you’re okay, if I have to choose who to represent.”

“She needs you way more than I do,” Kieran said. “We all know that I didn’t do this. We don’t know if she did for sure, but she needs someone better than the public defender they’d assign her.”

Diego sighed and said, “Fine. I’ll leave you to talk, but I’m going to wait outside, and we’ll confer about everything that was said in here. I’ll advise you from there.”

“Sure,” Kieran said somewhat dismissively.

Carina smiled at that a little and turned away to hide it as Diego stood, grabbed his briefcase, and left the office, closing the door loudly behind him.

“How long have you two been divorced?”

“Officially? A little over a year,” Kieran replied.

“Still close?”

“You could say that,” Kieran told her, sounding like that was a bad thing.

“Ah…” Carina leaned forward. “He still…”

“Yes.”

“But you don’t?”

“No. But I’m here to answer your questions, so go for it.”

“You understand that he can’t represent you, right? I don’t want to do this, but if I have to, I’ll get in front of a judge and ask the judge to choose because he can’t–”

“I understand,” Kieran said. “And you understand that I had nothing to do with this murder, right?”

Carina nodded and said, “Yes. But I’ll need to get a jury to believe that, too, so we still need to talk.”

“But talking to you only means that you’re going to use that against Marin.”

“Depends on what you say, but yes. Kieran, I only need you to tell me that you’re not a viable suspect for the defense to lean on.” Carina gave her a sympathetic smile. “Whatever you tell me today or another day, because you weren’t involved at all, won’t do anything to put your sister away for this. The evidence will do that, not you.”

“And what if I don’t want to help you? What if I want Diego to present me as another suspect? I clearly didn’t do it. You said it yourself that you believe me. And there’s no real evidence against me, anyway. So, you wouldn’t have me arrested, would you?”

“I don’t know. The same argument that he can use to include you as a suspect could be one I use to prosecute you for this later. It’s just easier to defend you than it is Marin with that argument because of her relationship with Nick May and the evidence. Either way, right now, I’m an ADA. I don’t assign myself cases. My boss does.”

“Right now?” Kieran asked.

“I have career plans,” she replied, leaving out the specifics.

“You think she did this?”

“It doesn’t matter what I think, Kieran. It matters what the evidence shows and what we can prove in a court of law. Then, it matters what the jurors decide from there. My job is to present that evidence and represent the state and the victim here.”

“Who wasn’t a good guy, from what I’ve been told,” Kieran pointed out.

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