“Well, we’ll let you get back to your fishing,” Garrett told Lou, adding, “I heard that rainbow and brook trout are out in force right now.”

  “Yeah, they are,” he concurred, “along with brown trout and smallmouth bass. If you ever want to join me, be my guests.”

  Garrett grinned. “We’ll keep that in mind.”

  They walked away from him, and Madison looked at Garrett and said, “I didn’t know you were into fishing.”

  “I grew up fishing in the Qualla,” he told her. “Not really my thing these days. But maybe once I’m retired from federal law enforcement, I can take it up again.”

  “Cool.” She tried to picture him in retirement mode. Or herself, for that matter. If they could grow old together, all the better. Was this something he pictured as well? Or were they living in more of a fantasy world right now in being involved romantically again, with reality setting in once the cases before them were put to rest?

  * * *

  AS PROMISED, Lou Buckley had his files on the Jessica Sneed cold case delivered late that afternoon to the head office of the Pisgah Ranger District. That evening, Garrett went through them with Madison at her house. They sat at the dining room table poring over the materials while sipping wine, looking for anything that stood out as relevant to the current murders. Admittedly, Garrett wondered if they were searching for a needle in a haystack, given the thirty-year spread since his mother’s murder. Had her killer really resurfaced and, as such, was out there for Garrett to find and bring to justice? Or was he deluding himself on a false premise?

  I can’t shake the feeling that there’s something to my intuition, Garrett told himself as he tasted the wine. Maybe her killer had murdered another woman the following year and had been lucky enough to have someone else take the rap, giving the unsub a free pass to kill other women in the years to follow.

  He looked at the sketch of an unidentified male that had been reported by witnesses as being on the parkway around the time of his mother’s murder. The man was described as being anywhere from his midtwenties to midthirties and sturdily built with dark eyes and a long nose, while possibly wearing outdoor work clothes. The authorities had never been able to locate the unsub. Garrett recalled Sheriff Buckley stating that park workers had been accounted for and eliminated as suspects. Meaning the unsub had likely worked elsewhere but could still have been a local who’d known the lay of the land. So, who was he and what had become of him? Was this the killer or a false lead?

  Garrett gazed at Madison, who was still in uniform but oh so sexy. And, frankly, distracting. She was the one definite positive that had come from his returning to this region to work. Wherever they went from here, he wanted it to be as a couple and all that came with it. When she looked up at him, he considered looking away but couldn’t.

  She batted her lashes curiously. “What?”

  “Nothing,” he said, as if she believed him, while he suppressed a grin.

  “Right.” Madison glanced at the paperwork spread before her and back. “Since I’ve got your attention, in looking this over and the lists of identified suspects, it seems like the one name that keeps popping up in the notes is Neil Novak. And with good reason. Take a look.”

  Garrett gazed at a file she handed him and saw the name. Neil Novak, age thirty-four at the time, had been an unemployed wrangler. A partial fingerprint belonging to Novak had been found on the survival knife that’d been used to kill Jessica Sneed. When confronted with this, Novak had claimed that the knife had been stolen a week earlier. As there had been no other physical evidence connecting him to the crime and Novak had had a rock-solid alibi after finding work when the murder had occurred, authorities had had no choice but to eliminate him as a suspect.

  “So, maybe Novak never really had his knife stolen and faked the alibi,” Madison contended, “and was able to get away with the murder of your mother.”

  “Hmm...” Garrett chewed on that notion. Alibis could certainly be falsified. It happened more often than people realized. The investigators on the case could only play the hand dealt them. Sometimes they got it wrong. Even when the evidence, or lack thereof, suggested otherwise. “You’re right—maybe we do need to take another hard look at Neil Novak, assuming he’s still alive.”

  “I think so,” she agreed. “And if Novak is among the living, is he local?”

  “He’d be sixty-four now,” Garrett pointed out. “Old enough to be out of the killing business, based on official data for the age range of typical killers—but still young enough, per se, to be able to perpetrate murders currently as the Blue Ridge Parkway Killer,” he reasoned.

  Madison perked up. “It’s a lead anyway.” She sipped her wine.

  “Yeah.” He gave her an agreeable look. “I think we need to learn everything we can about Neil Novak and what he may or may not have been up to.”

  “We will,” she said steadfastly. “Wherever the leads take us, right?”

  “Right.” Garrett held up the sketch of an unsub. “And there’s also this person to consider.”

  Madison grabbed the sketch, studying it. “True. Or he could have been someone’s imagination or a male suspect that was totally unrelated to the death of your mother.”

  “That’s possible,” Garrett was inclined to agree, while still having to regard him as a person of interest. He drank wine as a thought suddenly entered his head. “Doesn’t your brother Scott specialize in cold cases?”

  “Yeah.” Madison gazed at him. “Why do you ask?”

  “Well, given that we’ve opened one, I thought you could get him on the phone to see if he could give us some input on cold cases in general.”

  “Really?” She flashed a look of surprise.

  He chuckled. “Why not? Might help the cause.” At the very least, it could help me make further inroads in winning points with your family, Garrett told himself. He assumed that Scott and her other siblings knew by now that they were seeing each other again.

  “Okay.” Madison got to her feet and grabbed her laptop. She put it on the table and sat next to him. “Sure you want to do this?”

  “Of course.” He grinned. “I’m not too proud to ask for help.”

  “Just checking.” She smiled and called her brother for a video chat. When Scott accepted it, Madison said cheerfully, “Hey.”

  Scott smiled. “Hey, sis.”

  “You remember Garrett?”

  “Of course,” he said. “Special Agent Sneed. How are you?”

  “I’m good.” Garrett could read the surprise on his face in wondering what this was all about in reacquainting themselves with one another.

  “So, what’s up?” Scott asked.

  Madison leaned forward and said, “We’re looking into the murder of Garrett’s mom thirty years ago.”

  Scott raised a brow. “Oh...?”

  “We think it could be tied to a current case we’re investigating,” Garrett told him equably.

  “The Blue Ridge Parkway killings?”

  “You’ve got it,” he verified. “Between the similar pattern and a dangerous unsub still at large, it seemed worth exploring the possibility that my mother’s killer could be back and targeting other young women on the parkway. Since you specialize in cold cases, we thought you might have some general thoughts about this...”

  Before Scott could respond, Madison added, “And according to the sheriff at the time, there was a similar murder that occurred in the county a year later, in which a man confessed and recanted the confession but was still convicted of the crime. There is at least a possibility that he didn’t commit the crime and the unsub who killed Jessica Sneed was the real killer, which would still make it a cold case, apart from the present serial killer on the loose.”

  “Wow,” Scott uttered. “That’s a lot to unpack.”

  “Take your time,” she quipped.

  He chuckled. “Without knowing the details of your mother’s case, Garrett, I can tell you that cold cases can be tricky but still resolvable, even without the benefit of the culprit resuming his activities much later down the line.”

  Garrett listened attentively as Scott ran off some of the dynamics of cold cases that were typically violent and/or gained national attention, citing tunnel vision and advances in forensics as key variables that merited a second look for many such open-ended cases. Having worked on some cold cases in his career, Garrett had been privy to this but was happy to get Scott’s take, if only to bridge the familial gap between them for the sake of smoothing the way toward a bright future with Madison.

  “Jack the Ripper is obviously one notorious example of a very cold-case killer, who got away with murdering at least five prostitutes in Whitechapel in London’s East End in 1888,” Scott said. “While the infamous serial killer might never be identified conclusively, other cases and your mother’s death could still be solved by identifying the unsub.”

  “You think?” Garrett asked in all seriousness.

  “Yeah. May take some time though,” he cautioned. “Not to tell you how to do your job, but you’ll need to reexamine evidence, reinterview witnesses, seek out new evidence, etcetera.”

  “We get the picture,” Madison ribbed him.

  “You wanted my advice.” Scott chuckled. “Anything I can do to help.”

  “Appreciate that,” Garrett said sincerely. “I never turn down any free advice.” Especially coming from one of Madison’s siblings, he mused.

  “Neither do I,” Scott said and waited a beat. “So, what else is going on with you two? Anything I should know about?”

  Garrett deferred to Madison on that one, not wanting to put words in her mouth in sharing his own thoughts on the matter.

  Blushing, she told her brother simply, “We’re good.”

  “Fair enough,” Scott responded.

  “Maybe better than good,” Garrett spoke up. “But what do I know?”

  Madison laughed and pushed him so he nearly fell off the chair. “Trust your instincts.”

  Scott laughed. “You heard my sister. Never argue with her. You’ll lose every time.”

  He had to chuckle, though not wanting to ever test that theory any more than he had previously. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  After they ended the video chat, Madison said curiously, “Still think that was a good idea?”

  “Absolutely.” Garrett gave her a devilish grin. “Scott helped in more ways than one.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. He’s convinced me that being on your good side always has its benefits.”

  She showed her teeth tantalizingly. “What might those be?”

  “This for one...” Garrett kissed her and, at least for the time being, put aside the cold case he suddenly felt obsessed with thawing.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The next morning, Garrett gathered all he could on Neil Novak. Turned out that Novak was very much alive and living in Transylvania County. He had also spent time in prison for drug possession early in his life. Though there was no record of him being violence-prone, as far as Garrett was concerned Novak topped the list as a person of interest in his mother’s murder.

  “Think he’ll talk with us?” Madison asked during the drive to visit the suspect.

  Garrett sat back behind the steering wheel. “We’re not going to give him much of a choice,” he declared firmly. “If Novak had anything to do with my mother’s murder, he’s going to pay for it.” Tightening his fingers around the wheel, Garrett added, “Same is true if he’s the unsub in the Blue Ridge Parkway homicides.”

  They arrived at the Novak Ranch, a sprawling property with horses grazing on rolling hills, winding trails and mountain views on Chesterdale Lane in Owen Creek.

  “Looks like Novak has done well for himself over the years,” Madison commented after they stepped out of the car.

  “Looks can be deceiving,” Garrett muttered. “Beyond that, it’s hard to escape from one’s past if there’s something there to escape from.”

  “True enough.”

  They bypassed the large Craftsman-style home and headed straight for the stables, where they heard voices. Inside, Garrett spotted a tall and slender thirtysomething woman with flaming long and wavy red hair at a stall feeding a quarter horse. Beside her was a sixtysomething man who was taller and heavier, wearing a white wide-brimmed cowboy hat with curly gray hair beneath and sporting a gray ducktail beard.

  Garrett overheard the woman refer to the man as “Dad,” and she appeared to be concerned about his working too hard. When they heard footsteps approaching, the two turned and stopped talking.

  “Are you Neil Novak?” Garrett addressed the man.

  “Yep, that’s me.” He peered at him through dark eyes. “Who’s asking?”

  “Special Agent Sneed, from the National Park Service’s Investigative Services Branch.” Garrett flashed his identification. “And this is Law Enforcement Ranger Lynley.”

  “Hi,” Madison spoke evenly to both of them.

  Novak jutted his chin. “What’s this all about?”

  “A cold-case homicide,” Garrett responded succinctly.

  The woman cocked a brow. “Dad...?”

  “I’ve got this, Dominique.” Novak tensed. “I’ll see you in the house.”

  She looked as though she wanted to object, as green eyes darted from Garrett to Madison, before landing back on her father, after which she relented, “All right.”

  Garrett watched as she walked away, putting some distance between them. He gazed at Novak and said bluntly, “We’ve reopened the investigation into the murder of Jessica Sneed on the Blue Ridge Parkway.” He drew a breath. “She was my mother.”

  “The parkway killing.” Novak scratched his beard nervously. “Sorry that happened to your mother, but that was a long time ago. What does it have to do with me?”

  “A survival knife that had your partial fingerprint on it was found to be the murder weapon, Mr. Novak,” Madison told him. “I’d say it has everything to do with you.”

  “As I told the investigators back then, the knife was stolen from my pickup truck. I have no idea who took it and no knowledge of what it was used for by the thief.” Novak breathed heavily out his nose. “In any event, I was cleared of any wrongdoing.”

  “About that,” Garrett said. “It seems like your name continued to come up in the investigation in spite of the alibi. Why do you suppose that is?”

  “You tell me.” Novak’s brow creased. “Maybe the cops and rangers thought I was somehow capable of being in two places at once. Well, I wasn’t. On the day your mother was killed, I was working on a ranch thirty miles from the parkway and had plenty of others there who could vouch for it. Including the ranch’s owner. Now I have my own ranch and have tried to put that dark time behind me for good. Obviously, that isn’t so easy for you. Sorry you wasted your time coming here, but I can’t help you solve the case.”

  “Can’t?” Garrett glared at him. “Or won’t?”

  Novak stroked the quarter horse’s neck. “Can’t,” he insisted, his voice steady. “Look, I’m older now and have nothing to hide. If that’s all, I have a ranch to run.”

  Madison lifted her eyes up. “We think that whoever murdered Jessica Sneed may be back at it again,” she stated.

  His head snapped back. “What are you saying?”

  “Two women have been stabbed to death recently on the parkway. The similarities to Ms. Sneed’s murder, type of weapon used and location have given us reason to believe that they may have been committed by the same man.”

  Novak leaned against the stall thoughtfully, tilting the brim of his hat. “Same person thirty years later? Is that even possible?”

  “Yes, it’s quite possible,” Garrett told him. “We think that my mother’s killer may have stabbed to death another woman a year later but another man took the rap for it. So yes, that same killer could have remained dormant for years before returning to the parkway to go after other vulnerable women.”

  “Wow.” Novak uttered an expletive. “Hard to believe the same killer from thirty years ago would be around to target others today and think he could get away with it.”

  “Why wouldn’t he think that?” Garrett challenged him while wondering if Novak himself could be involved somehow with the recent killings. “After all, he got away with it before. Maybe more than once.”

  Novak wrinkled his nose. “If that’s the case, I hope you get the bastard. But I’m afraid I still can’t help you. As I said, I lost the knife, so...”

  “Did you lose it, or was the knife stolen, as you claimed thirty years ago?” Madison pressed him.

  “Stolen,” Novak insisted. “Lost was just a poor choice of words.”

  Garrett wondered if that was the case. Or could it mean he was lying about both options and had, in fact, handed the knife off to someone?

  Removing the sketch from the pocket of his khaki pants, Garrett said, “This person was seen in the vicinity of the area on the Blue Ridge Parkway where my mother was murdered. Does he look familiar?”

  Novak took the sketch and studied it for a long moment before replying unevenly, “Can’t say that he does...sorry.”

  “Take another look,” Garrett insisted, sensing that he could be holding back for some reason.

  Novak again stared at the drawing stoically. “Nope.” He handed the sketch back to Garrett. “It’s been thirty years, so my memory could be failing me. Not to mention it’s just a sketch that may or may not even be an accurate portrayal of the person it’s supposed to. Either way, it doesn’t ring a bell. I wish I could say otherwise, but I can’t.”

  Garrett glanced at Madison, whose expression matched his own in believing they might have reached a dead end here. If Novak did know something, he was unwilling to say so. And they were in no position to apply more pressure. “By the way,” Garrett put out, “just for the record, I’ll need you to account for your whereabouts when the two recent murders occurred on the parkway.”