Past Sins

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?

Thomas Grant Bruso · LGBT+

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35 Chs

Chapter 26

“I need to see you.” He sounds drunk.

“Where are you? Are you all right?”

“I need to talk to somebody.”

Through the blaring TV and rowdy voices in the background, my tone rises to an uncomfortable octave in order for him to make out what I’m saying. “Where are you?”

“Snake Eyes.”

I stare out the sliding glass doors to a day awakening in blinding gold light and a dazzling sunshine peeking through oaks and sycamores in the front yard.

I close my eyes to my former partner slurring his words. “I need to see you,” he says over and over.

I settle into a deep trance after listening to his repetitive voice, and I see Steve’s face interrupting my thoughts, and the dead stare of Cora Findings staring at me from within the dark corridors of my mind.

It can’t be, I tell myself, thinking back to Ms. Finding’s autopsy report.

Ryan yanks me out of my daze and back into the ambiguous dream of our conversation. “Yes, I’m here,” I say. “I’ll be right there. Don’t leave.”

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