Page 17 of On Edge

That would have been mortifying. Classic Sage, caught by her own incompetence before the killer even gets a chance.

Taking a breath to calm my thudding heart, Severin’s billionaire scent hits me: cedarwood, linen…and tobacco, faint but present. It tickles my nose. Not unpleasantly. Though it does smell like the interior of my father’s car, when he collects me after church meetings.

Does Severin smoke?

Mentally, I add it to the list of things I dislike about him.

Behind the desk squats a worn leather chair. I perch on it, aware that this is where Severin sits, and run my eyes over the mess. Papers are everywhere. Some are trapped under a used coffee mug. Others spill from the paper tray in crumpled waves. I sift through them, quickly, resisting the urge to tidy as I go.Severin could return at any moment, and the last thing I need to do is give in to my OCD, right now.

After I’m finished with the desk, I move to the filing cabinets. But every little sound makes me freeze. My hands shake, even after all those scones at lunch.

I’m not usually the type to snoop through someone’s private things...except, apparently, I am. In my defence, I need to be thorough. I watched all seasons ofCriminal MindsandCSIwith Lainey before I came here. Building a profile means gathering every scrap of evidence. Even if the profile I’m building is of my sister’s killer.

But there’s not much to build.

His laptop is password-protected. Most of the paperwork consists of business documents, including invoices, contracts, and purchase orders. Nothing helpful. I do note several payments to Fleet Morgue; Razor, a luxury men’s grooming brand; and an offshore biodisposal company with a wolf logo that looks familiar, though I can’t place it.

It dawns on me that Severin Industries owns all these companies.

Heisa billionaire.

But how did he build this empire from nothing? When I researched his public profile, there wasn’t a thing about him in the press before he arrived in England. No childhood. No family. It’s like he appeared out of thin air, three years ago, and then, more than a year later, bought Grayfleet.

The most interesting thing is a stash of passports hidden in an envelope. They’re shoved beneath a stack of files like someone tried to bury them. I flip through each one and the bundle of identification papers that accompanies them. Each one has Severin’s face with a different name.

None of the names I recognize.

Why would he need all of these?

As I put them back in the envelope, something familiar jumps out at me from the paper tray. An envelope from the lawfirm my father uses. Inside is a contract—my marriage contract, to be exact.

I shouldn’t know what it says. My father never included me in his business deals. After I was released from the clinic, I stole a copy from his office and read it over and over, word for word. That’s how I knew he would send me here. How I knew I was to be engaged to a man I’d never met, who most likely killed Nell, and that Father didn’t care.

But this document looks different.

The date is wrong to start with. It’s older than the one I found in my father’s study. And something else…But I can’t put my finger on it. I skim through it, trying to take it all in. No, it’s definitely the same contract I read before. But then I realize it’s two agreements, lumped together. The first one is my marriage contract. The other one seems to be a property sale agreement for Grayfleet between Severin Industries and Wychshire Heritage Extraction Ltd….

Voices echo faintly down the hall.

My breath catches.

Frozen, hands full of documents I shouldn’t be looking at, I stare at the door, waiting.

But no one comes.

Maybe it’s just the house creaking again? Either way, I need to be done. I shove the documents back where I found them, ready to leave, but my hip bumps the desk corner. A stack of loose papers slips to the floor in a messy cascade.

Dropping to my knees, I gather them as fast as I can, but a couple of invoices slip through my fingers and float under the desk. I crouch down to look, my heart fluttering like a bird trying to escape the entire time, but it’s too dark to see. Taking out my phone, I switch on the torch and shine it frantically.

There!

I see them.

As I reach for the bills, muscles cramping, dust bunnies threatening to make me sneeze, my fingers just about close on them…and something else.

Another scrap of paper?

I lean close to the wood and slide them free.