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Character Profiles > Reece Sinclair Mischa Barton

Reece Sinclair 2023
Marital Status: Unnamed First Husband (Divorced); Mr Peters (Divorced)
Parents: Conrad Sinclair
Siblings: Krista
Occupation: Senior Executive at Sincast Corporation

After the wealthy American Sinclair family became the new silent investors in Lassiters Hotel in Erinsborough, owner Paul Robinson felt that he’d made the right decision, as the Sinclairs seemed to be keeping their distance, and allowing him to run the business in his own way. However, one day, Paul’s sister, and Head of Lassiters Worldwide, Lucy Robinson, recognised Reece Peters, a guest who’d been staying at the hotel for a few weeks, as Reece Sinclair, eldest daughter of the wealthy Conrad. Reece had been quietly keeping a close eye on the hotel, its staff and its facilities for a while, but she’d also begun a secret relationship with Byron Stone, who worked as a porter at Lassiters.

Byron was the first to learn of her secret identity, having felt that she was keeping something from him and gone through some of her papers. Unsure how to deal with the potential fallout, Byron took a step back from the relationship, but it wasn’t long before Lucy exposed the truth. Reece quickly made it clear that she wasn’t going to let Paul have complete control any more, and fired Holly Hoyland when she found a hair in her coffee.

Desperate to keep the Sinclair family on side, Paul asked Byron, not realising that he’d already had a personal relationship with Reece, to keep an eye on her and try to find out any useful information. Hopeful that she could win Byron back, Reece gave Holly her job back, after learning that she and Byron were good friends, and it wasn’t long before Byron and Reece were back in bed, and Byron found himself feeding her information about Paul’s plans. As Paul managed to fix all of the problems that Reece had found, he was hopeful that she’d return to the US, but she made it clear that she wasn’t going anywhere, whilst secretly receiving texts from her father, telling her that she wouldn't be allowed to leave Erinsborough until ‘the job is done’. Paul remained determined to get rid of her, and thought he'd struck gold when he saw a dishevelled Reece and Byron getting out of the lift, then checked the security cameras and discovered their affair.

Paul told Reece that he knew what was going on, then deliberately revealed that Byron used to be an escort, suggesting that she'd been paying for his services all along. Horrified, Reece gave Byron some money and told him that things were over between them, and he then made a drunken declaration of his feelings for her in the Lassiters Complex, revealing the relationship to everyone. Following a heart to heart, they agreed to give things another try, much to Paul's disappointment, and, hopeful that they were now being completely honest with each other, Byron asked her out on a date. Wanting her to see a little more of his world, Byron took her to the beach for a meat pie, and she told him a little more about her past, and the fact that her father had been married to seven different women, including one in Australia, and had children with all of them.

As things were improving for Reece and Byron, she became distracted when she spotted hotel employee Katrina Marshall looking at a sun necklace in the lost property. Reece went back to her room and looked at a matching moon necklace, then, after tracking down the sun necklace at the Sonya Rebecchi Foundation, where it had been donated, she received a surprise visit from Tess Carmichael. Tess, Conrad Sinclair's right-hand woman, had been sent to find out why Reece was taking so long with her mission in Australia. She warned Reece that, after a few days on business in Adelaide, she'd be back and wanted to see some progress made. Reece then spent the following couple of days asking hotel staff to get information for her, claiming that it was market research. As Byron became confused about Reece's lies that she was getting a massage or too busy to see him, he followed her to an empty hotel room, where she finally explained the truth - she was in Australia to try and find her missing sister, Krista.

Reece told Byron that Krista had always struggled with being part of the Sinclair family and the expectation that she would join the family business and had disappeared to Australia. Almost a year earlier, Krista had asked Reece for money and, when she was turned down, she had sent Reece a postcard from Lassiters, saying that she was dead to her. That postcard had been the last contact any member of the family had had with Krista. As it became increasingly clear that she wasn’t just going to turn up one day, Conrad Sinclair decided to take an opportunity to buy into the hotel, sending Reece out there to search for her missing sister, not wanting to involve the police or bring any negative press to the family.

Byron understood why Reece had kept quiet, but offered to help her in the search, soon finding out that she had used the garage at Lassiters, meaning that she must have had a car. As they edged closer to the truth, they found that car that she had used, with Reece offering its owner, Theo, five thousand dollars for it. Feeling that she was finally making progress, Reece was worried when Tess returned, unimpressed that the car was pretty much all Reece had to go on. To make matters worse, Paul was still determined to dig up dirt on Reece and get her out of Erinsborough, and he took great pleasure in telling Tess that Reece had lied about her identity when she arrived, and that she was dating Byron, a former escort. Tess then told Reece that she was going to take over the search, and that Reece would be returning to the US. Reece, however, was determined that she wasn’t going to give up, or leave Australia, with Tess finally relenting, but before she left, she told Reece that her father was struggling to cope and his health was suffering.

Having found out that Krista’s car had previously been registered to a John Walter in Robinvale, Reece and Byron decided to go there and see if he knew anything. On the way, they found out that John was overseas, but decided to press on and try asking at some hostels, as it wasn’t a big town and somebody might recognise Krista. At one hostel, they found out that she had been staying under her fake name, Kelly Miller, with two other guests, but were in for a huge shock when they spotted a photo of her posted on the hostel’s notice board with Holly Hoyland and her ex, Eden Shaw. Though neither of them knew Eden, they immediately recognised Holly and wondered why she had never mentioned anything. Arriving back in Erinsborough that night, Reece received devastating news when Holly told her that Krista was dead.

The full story had just emerged that day - Krista had met Holly and Eden two years earlier, whilst in Erinsborough looking for Melanie Pearson, the Sinclair family’s former housekeeper in London. Melanie and Krista had once been close, and Mel had tried to help Krista years earlier when she had developed a drug problem. Having gone to a drug deal in Krista’s place to try and get the dealers to leave the 16-year-old alone, Melanie had been left holding the drugs during a bust and had been arrested. Krista bailed her out and helped her to get out of the country and back to Australia, where she spent many years worried that the police would catch up with her. Krista, meanwhile, had met Holly and Eden. Holly had family in the area, but had decided to keep away from them, angry at her mum, Izzy’s, behaviour. Eden had persuaded her to go travelling and, after learning that Krista - or Kelly as they knew her - was from a wealthy family, he asked her to join them.

After a year travelling around Australia, they had returned to Erinsborough. Eden and Krista had started hooking up behind Holly’s back and, when she found out, she dumped him and returned to her family on Ramsay Street. Plying former addict Krista with drugs and seeing her as a better meal ticket than Holly, Eden tried to get her to approach Melanie for more money. The plan ended badly when, one night at the Lassiters rooftop pool, Krista tried to blackmail Melanie, who angrily pushed her away. Krista fell into the water, hitting her head, and Melanie, believing she was dead, rushed to hotel owner Paul for help. Paul rushed up to the roof, where he found no sign of Krista, but Eden there waiting for him, eager to cut a deal. Paul agreed to pay him half a million dollars for his silence, with his actions causing a huge fallout, as he left his wife, Terese, rather than tell her the truth. Similarly, Melanie walked out on her marriage to Toadie Rebecchi and left town, with others who’d been aware of what had happened, including Paul’s son, David, and Byron’s sister, Nicolette, also leaving town in the aftermath.

Still believing that Krista was dead, Reece became determined to find Eden and learn what he’d done with her sister’s body. With help from Holly, Eden was tracked down to an abandoned house and arrested, but the biggest shock came when Holly and the police found Krista, still alive, sleeping on a mattress in the basement. It emerged that Eden had taken Krista away from Erinsborough, aware that he could only blackmail Paul and Melanie if they thought that she was dead. After the half a million dollars had run out, and Krista continued to refuse to contact her family for more money, Eden found that he had less use for her, eventually going back to Paul for more money, then breaking into Melanie’s house. With Eden arrested and denied bail, Krista was taken to hospital, where she was diagnosed with pneumonia and started going through drug withdrawals. After initially refusing to see Reece, she finally agreed and the sisters had a heart-to-heart, with Reece returning the lost sun necklace to Krista.

Just as things seemed to be improving, Reece learnt from Tess that Conrad had suffered a massive stroke. As she had power of attorney, everyone was turning to Reece to find out what was going to happen, and she realised that she was going to have to return to New Hampshire to see her father and take control of SinCast. After asking Byron to keep an eye on Krista as she prepared to go into rehab, and telling Paul that she hoped he’d end up in prison for his behaviour, Reece said a sad farewell to Byron, who was unaware that she was unlikely to be coming back, but was sparing his feelings by not telling him. Soon after, Reece got in touch with the news that Conrad had died, and asked that it be kept from Krista until she was well enough to deal with it. Concerned that Reece had barely been in touch with him, Byron put it down to how busy she was, and started making plans to go and join her in the US. Hours before he planned to fly out, he was devastated to received a package from her, containing a star necklace and a note thanking him for everything, but explaining that she couldn't see a way that he would fit into the chaos of her life now that she was running SinCast.