“You said she would never actually enforce this,” Eleanor whispered, staring at the page like it might rearrange itself into something less frightening.
Richard looked around the pavilion. Nearly everyone who had been laughing minutes earlier was now suddenly very interested in examining their drink, their plate, or the surface of the lake.
“She won’t,” he said, though his voice had lost most of its usual confidence. “Claire gets emotional. She always comes back.”
That was the exact moment the process server walked into the pavilion.
He asked for Richard Cole by name, handed him the divorce petition, and waited patiently while Richard signed for it with a hand that wasn’t entirely steady. Then he turned and served Madison with a preservation notice, instructing her formally not to delete any messages, emails, banking records, or data from her phone.
Madison’s confidence evaporated on the spot.
“Dad?”
Richard pulled her toward the parking lot, but Eleanor followed close behind them both. “What did you do?” she demanded.
