Officer Jack Ballinger receives a phone call from the chief of police in the early morning hours regarding a dead body at an apartment building in a quiet neighborhood in the small upstate New York town of Black Falls. A female student lies in a pentagram outlined in her own blood, clutching a rosary. Ballinger and his former partner Officer Cory Ryan interview tenants in the building about the girl’s death, but are met with more questions than answers.<br><br>When another body is found in the same apartment building a few hours later, Jack knows something is wrong. As he ciphers through a patchwork of unexplainable clues, the investigation detours when Ryan disappears from the case and cannot be found.<br><br>With his future as an officer in question, will Ballinger be able to deal with the truth of these crimes once he dscovers everything he thought he knew was a lie?

Past Sins

“Do you know where I can reach the property owner?” I ask.


She thinks. “His office is out back.”


“I hope you find whoever did this,” she says, before retreating back into her apartment. “They deserve to be punished.”


In this line of work, I want to tell her there are no guarantees. None of us behind the badge can make promises. Most of the time they turn out to be false.


I am alone in the hallway, finishing a thought in my notepad before I head to the end of the hall and open the door to the stairwell.


Staring down the flight of stairs to the bottom, an idea grabs me: What was Cora doing in the basement alone?


Cora Findings’ body is covered in a white sheet and wheeled out on a stretcher as I stand on the sidewalk with the police chief and other curious onlookers from the neighboring block.


Chapter 21