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Jeremy glowered at her. The air between them was so thick that it could have been cut with a knife. Alana was almost surprised that Jeremy’s resentment toward her was so powerful, even after all these years. She supposed she didn’t blame him for labeling her as “the evil one,” especially as he’d apparently lived his life here while she’d escaped into the big, wide world.
It was supposed to be the other way around, after all.
“We just really need to look over the court files for our father’s case back in the spring of 1997,” Julia interjected.
Jeremy arched his thick eyebrow. “The court files. You think we keep all our court files here at the courthouse?”
He said it as though Julia and Alana should have already known this.
Julia sputtered. “I wasn’t really sure. I just wanted to talk to someone in charge about the process. You, I suppose.”
“The process…”
Jeremy was acting so arrogant. Alana scanned his muscular arm and eyed his left hand.No wedding band. Maybe he’d been cruel to his wife, and she’d gotten away? Or maybe he’d never married at all? Maybe he’d been a perpetual bachelor, dating all the eligible women across the island and…
Alana’s mind raced with possible theories, none of which mattered at all.
“Well, let’s see,” Jeremy began, jumping behind the front desk and grabbing a number of manila envelopes. “There are a lot of files to fill out. Paperwork. We just love paperwork here at the courthouse, don’t we, Jane…”
Jane tittered. She adored his affection, regardless of the tension between all of them.
One after another, Jeremy splayed out papers that Julia and Alana needed to fill out in order to be “eligible” to have the court files shipped to Nantucket Island. All the color drained from Julia’s cheeks.
“How long will something like that take?” she whispered.
Jeremy gave them a flippant shrug. “Weeks. Months. It’s hard to say.”
Jane nodded violently beside him, backing up the man she loved. “But Jeremy can always push things a little bit faster if—”
“Months,” Jeremy affirmed. “I can’t do anything better than that.”
Back outside, Alana and Julia marched in a huff back to The Copperfield House. Sweat billowed up across their necks.
“I cannot believe this,” Julia muttered.
“I know.” Alana’s thoughts stirred with panic, intrigue, and also, admittedly, laughter. “What are the odds of that happening?”
Julia stopped short on the sidewalk and crossed her arms. “I don’t know if that guy knows this, but he’s the one who got into an accident that night. You didn’t do that to him.”
“Julia, come on. The man lost everything that night. I’m all tied up in that story,” Alana pointed out.
Julia rubbed her eye so that her makeup smeared across her cheek. “He’s the gatekeeper between us and Dad’s court files. Now it’s a nightmare. Did you hear how arrogant he sounded? Months, he said, like months means five years. We could be in this hell forever.”
Julia charged forward with her eyebrows low. Alana reached out and grabbed her elbow, tugging her back.
“Hey!”
Julia glared at her. “What?”
“Let’s not let Jeremy Farley get to us,” Alana said.
Julia stuttered. “I just really, really want to get to the bottom of this. I want Dad to come out of his study for good. I want the world to see Bernard Copperfield for the man we always knew he was.”
“But Julia, we didn’t always know he was that man,” Alana countered. “We believed his guilt along with everyone else.”
Julia’s lower lip bobbed around. She knew Alana was right.
“I just feel so guilty that nobody paid attention to some really clear details,” Julia whispered. “So guilty that we just let this all go by without asking the questions that needed to be asked.”
“We’ll get to the bottom of it, Julia,” Alana murmured. “If Jeremy stands in our way too long, we’ll find another way. We’re Copperfields, aren’t we? We always figure out a way through.”
Julia blinked several times. “I hope you’re right.”
