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

He shakes his head, smirking, showing me his teeth, like a teenage bully I used to know in grade school, who tormented me for being gay.


I think of my father and see him in the chief’s temper.


“Why did you kill those women? Out of shame? Anger? Blackmail?” I pause. “Do women intimidate you, sir?”


“I didn’t do anything to those women,” is all he says, his voice faltering.


“It’s over,” I say, the words rolling off my tongue easily. “Whether or not you confess to me isn’t the issue. All the proof I need is in the report. And something you said at Ms. Block’s apartment.”


He looks at me squarely, his jaw jutting, trying to keep a cool composure. “What did I say?”


“It’s been bothering me since the investigation.”


“You slipped badly when you mentioned Ms. Block’s missing Jeep.”


Chapter 31