About the Book

Jude Dillane, owner of The Corner Lounge in Manhattan’s East Village, knows she will never be safe until The New Year’s Eve Serial Killer, Art Bevins, is behind bars. Still on the loose, he continues to taunt her. Blaming Jude for all his troubles, Bevins is determined to make her pay. With the FBI investigation at a stand-still Jude knows it’s up to her to bring him to justice. With all this swirling around her, Thomas “Sully” Sullivan, her friend and landlord, becomes enamored of his new tenant, Dolores Castel. Jude instantly distrusts Sully’s new love and believes Dolores is weaving a dangerous web. As she continues her pursuit of Bevins, Jude looks into Dolores’s past, uncovering a series of shocking coincidences. Can Jude stop Bevins from his deadly pursuit and protect her friend from ruin?

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Excerpt

If I had known that renting the empty apartment on the seventh floor would have caused such heartache, I would have told Sully to lock the door and throw away the key.

I can’t say what happened was my fault. It wasn’t. Or that I could have prevented it. I couldn’t. But still, I wished I had seen it coming. But that’s hindsight for you. You don’t always have the foresight to see what seems so obvious later.

Sully was sitting in his usual seat at the corner of the bar and staring into his Jameson. Sulking, I thought as I glanced his way. He’s got to get out of this funk. It’s just not good for him. Or me.

I understood the problem. Having had the New Year’s Eve Serial Killer living in his apartment complex was not a resounding endorsement for the property or the landlord. Still, none of it was his fault and it had been over three months since the murder. It was spring, a time for new beginnings, right?

I’d tried to persuade him to get past it. He knew I was as devastated as everyone else in the neighborhood, especially since we were together when we discovered the body of Michael Bevins in The Corner Lounge’s dumpster on New Year’s Day. The whole episode last January, including Dean’s abduction and torture, had taken a toll on all of us. Dean was my friend and my head bartender, and I couldn’t help but feel responsible.

Sully hadn’t been able to bounce back. As a former Marine Lieutenant, he was used to being in charge of his men, and himself. I knew he was feeling anything but ‘in charge’ at the moment. He’d gone back to his volunteer job at the Big City Food Bank where he was responsible for shipping out food deliveries to distribution centers and food pantries all over the city. The job kept him busy, but something was still missing. He looked drained, his silver-grey brush-cut hair seemed dull, and his usually brilliant blue eyes held an undercurrent of sadness. He needed a distraction to get him back to his old self. I walked over to his corner, plopped my elbows on the bar, and leaned in close. “Hey, you. Whatcha thinking about?”

Sully shrugged. “The usual. Who’s going to rent that empty apartment when they find out what happened there?” He looked me in the eyes and answered his own question. “No one. That’s who.”

The apartment he was talking about was the one directly over mine, only he’d added the adjacent studio and turned it into a two-bedroom, two-bathroom gem. “I think you’re wrong. Nothing happened in that apartment,” I replied. Well, almost nothing. “You’re not responsible for a crazy killer.”

For years, the F.B.I. had been searching for the serial murderer they’d dubbed The New Year’s Eve Killer. He’d started his vicious rampage on New Year’s Eve in nineteen-ninety-nine with the murder of a Danish tourist—at least that was the first one attributed to him until the F.B.I. discovered he’d been killing long before.

Since then, he’d gone on to kill several more men, always on the last day of the year, three that they knew about, and maybe more deaths that were never reported. The most shocking aspect of the case was that there were actually two killers working together. In a weird twist of fate, the second killer murdered the brother of the first and left his body in my dumpster.

“Art Bevins was murdering people long before you bought the buildings,” I continued and shuddered at how close Dean had been to becoming one of his victims. “And you know Jim Deems was the perfect acolyte, easy to manipulate and bend to his will.”

“I know you’re right, Jude. I gotta get on with things, but—”

His cell rang just then, cutting him off from finishing his thought. “Speak!” he demanded in his usual greeting. Well, at least one thing is normal, I thought as I hid a small smile.

“Really?” Sully’s tone had moved up a few notches from flat to warily interested. “When? What time? Okay great.” He clicked off and I could see a glimmer of something hopeful in his face. “That was Buster Dunlap,” he explained, “the realtor.”

About the Author

Cathi Stoler is sure she was born knowing how to read. The writing came later. She is an Amazon Best Selling author and Derringer winner. The three novels in her Murder On the Rocks Series published by Level Best Books feature The Corner Lounge Bar Owner, Jude Dillane. She is also the author of the Nick Donahue Adventures featuring professional Blackjack player, Nick Donahue and the Laurel and Helen New York Mystery Series. Very involved in the crime writing world, Cathi is a member of Sisters in Crime New York/Tri-State, Mystery Writers of America, and International Thriller Writers. Find out more about Cathi at: www.cathistoler.com, or email her at: cathi@cathistoler.com.

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