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

I jerk a thumb into the laundry room. “The elderly woman’s pet.”


Barton shrugs, and turns back to his phone.


While waiting for him to finish, I look back to the scene of the crime and take a moment to glimpse the ghastly images in front of me.


The blood splatter patterns around the body suggest the vic may have slipped. I look down at the floor where the indentation of a single footprint marks the puddle of blood next to her head.


Crime scene markers identify the important blood patterns around the room.


I hear the chief ending his call as he heads toward me, his rubber soles squeaking down the hallway.


“Discover anything?” he asks, coming to my side.


“No. I left a message on his voice mail.”


“So, what about the victim’s dog?”


“It’s with another tenant,” he says, pulling out his notebook, and licking his fingers to flip pages. “Mrs. Jackson. A friend of the victim.”


He gestured toward the stairwell. “After you.”


Chapter 20