Page 228 of Sinister

This is beyond coincidence. There’s no logic to explain this. No scientific answer. How can we look the same? How can we be the same?

Desperate for more answers, I dig through the papers. Most are newspaper clippings. One details the murder of Rutherford. Another, Underwood. There’s mention of Arnoult’s seances and his obsession with the occult.

Then I find a yellowed piece of paper, frayed at the corners. A letter.

Dearest Sin,

We must be on guard. Snowden is preparing something. I do not yet know the details, but I need your help to get my Leah out of that house before the wedding. I can’t let her marry another man. I can’t let her be hurt again.

Meet me at our designated spot.

Your friend and mentor,

Arnoult.

I set the letter down slowly, heart pounding.

So he was Sin’s mentor.

Leah was pregnant with Sinclair Arnoult’s child. But if Sin and Sinclair were not the same person in the past—why is present-Sin called Sinclair Arnoult?

What exactly is the relationship between Sin and Arnoult the First, and how does that relate to the murders?

I remember the newspaper clipping we found in Sin’s parents’ house—the one talking about a father-daughter murder-suicide. Now I can’t help but wonder: Was the person who died Leah . . . or past-life me?

Because both of us had strange relationships with our fathers.

And although Snowden seemed like quite the character—going as far as using some type of creature to kill his competitors—I cannot see him murdering his own daughter, no matter the circumstances.

My past-life father, on the other hand, was cruel. He was exactly the type of person who would do something like that.

So the question is: Who died that night? What happened to past-life me—and past-life Sin?

65

PETRA

The only way to solve these mysteries is to make sense of the murders—to look for connections, for motives. Because I no longer believe this is simply about sacrifices or some kind of pagan ritual. It’s too disorganized, too erratic for that.

Pocketing the photo of past Petra and past Sin, I carefully restack the papers where I found them and slip out of the office.

Back in the living room, I spot the corner where Sin has spread out his school things. I settle onto the sofa, grab a piece of paper and a pen, and begin jotting down everything I can remember about the murders.

If there’s a pattern hidden in the chaos, maybe this will help me find it—maybe even figure out who’s next. Why it’s happening. But more importantly, who’s behind it.

So, I start writing.

The first incident that comes to mind is the obelisk victims: twenty-five students who appeared to have taken their own lives by cutting their jugulars. At the time, it was branded a ritual murder. And according to past-life Sin, it might truly have been just that.

Then, only a few days later, Rutherford was killed. Followed soon after by Underwood.

Those two murders are different; we know they were carried out by Snowden’s creature.

At some point, either before or after the obelisk deaths, there were the fifteen mausoleum victims, each bearing the same puncture wounds to the sides of their necks. And lastly, among the known victims from the nineteenth century, there’s the still-unnamed father and daughter duo who died together.

I draw a line beneath that list and begin jotting down the more recent murders.

From my discussions with Sin, I remember the mass suicide of the St. Anselm Hall alumni, which took place around nineteen years ago. They died in the same manner—and in the same number—as the obelisk victims: twenty-five.