Across the street, my mother lifted her voice like she was calling a dog back into the yard. “You should have listened to us, Rowan!”
I turned my head slowly and looked at her. Her lipstick was already perfect at six in the morning. That felt obscene.
The deputy’s eyes flicked toward them and back. Something in his face shifted—not belief, exactly, but discomfort. “If you have questions, I can show you the paperwork.”
“Who filed it?”
He checked the top line on his clipboard.
And that was the moment his expression changed.
Not dramatically. Not in a movie way. Just enough that I saw he had walked up those steps thinking one thing and now knew he was standing in another.
“The plaintiffs are listed as Preston Ward and Victoria Ward.”
My parents.
My own parents had filed an eviction order against me from the house I legally owned free and clear. The house my grandfather Silas Merrick had left to me in a will so direct there had barely been room to breathe in the attorney’s office after he read it aloud.
“Show me the service address,” I said.
The deputy hesitated, then turned the clipboard.
