Fatal Contract

Tessa Blackwell makes a living cleaning up supernatural disasters before they become somebody else's problem. Broken wards. Dangerous residue. Magical accidents wealthy clients would prefer handled quietly. Then she is called to the sealed penthouse of billionaire financier Conrad Orrell. His death has already been ruled the result of catastrophic oath-work. The room appears to support that conclusion. Tessa knows something is wrong. Part of the scene does not fit. Someone with professional cleanup training may have been there before her. And hidden among the damage is something Tessa recognizes from a bargain she made years ago, one she believed was long finished. What begins as a discreet cleanup turns into a dangerous investigation involving money, magic, and people with very good reasons to keep their secrets buried. With a Contract Authority investigator watching her closely and her own past becoming harder to ignore, Tessa has to work out what really happened in that penthouse before someone decides she has seen too much. Because Tessa's best skill has never been making messes disappear. It is seeing what everyone else missed. Fatal Contact is an approximately 74,500-word supernatural mystery blending forensic investigation, financial intrigue, dry humor, morally complicated choices, and slow-burn romantic tension.