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

“But I can’t handle the job anymore,” he says. “The long hours. The stress.”


“I thought you were pissed off with me when I turned you down for a drink.”


His head is too heavy to hold up, I notice, and his eyes start to close.


I look around the room, but nobody, even not the bartender, notices us. I whisper to Ryan, “Let’s go. I’ll take you home.”


“Wait. Wait. Let me say something.”


“What?” I stand and hold a hand out to him, helping him off the stool.


“You’d make a great lieutenant someday.” He slaps my face gently, and grins.


I think about my five years on the police force working alongside Ryan. “We’ve had a lot of exciting times,” I say.


He laughs, falling into my open arms, and I have to reach out for the counter behind me to keep from falling. Ryan’s strong weightlifter chest presses hard against me, pinning me between him and the bar’s edge.


Chapter 27