Blue Ridge, Black Heart by Geraldine Powell

Author:Geraldine Powell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: female detective, female sleuth, southern mystery, mystery action suspense thriller, mystery and murder, small town detective, mystery female private eye, suspense and murder, kidnapping and murder, appalachian mountain mystery
Publisher: Geraldine Powell

Chapter 17

Sid knocked on my door at five a.m. She held a large container that resembled a pet carrier. She nodded at the case and said, “My brother’s drone in case we want to survey the place before we knock on the door.”

We went out front and waited for Jubal to show. The weather was unusually warm for an October morning and the gusty breeze from the south carried the smell of rain. Overhead the city lights reflected off fast-moving low clouds. I hadn’t seen a forecast in days but I didn’t need Channel 9 to that know rain was on the way. We might be able to outrun it heading north, but the return trip was another story.

The second we saw Jubal’s Audi, Sid called “Shotgun.” I hadn’t heard that high school term in ages. We piled in and hit the interstate headed north.

The seating arrangement worked. I’d not slept well and felt groggy even after two shots of my special Cuban coffee. Both Jubal and Sid were sort of geeky. Right off they fell into an animated conversation showing off their frontal lobes. They yammered on about statistics, computers and algorithms, stuff that put me to sleep even when I was bright-eyed and wide awake. I know algorithms are some kind of mathematical sorcery that lets Wall Street screw the rest of us, but that is it. All I could accomplish in that conversation would be to demonstrate my ignorance.

The soft, comfortable back seat sucked me into a private world insulated from the chatter up front. I had time to engage in some serious second-guessing. Would Pinky, and more importantly Carmen, be there when we arrived? Who was the cold fish in the blue Cadillac? Where did Katherine Addams fit in all of this? Was Jubal really being honest about wanting to find Carmen and getting his family past all this? How would Jubal be in bed?

All that kept going around in my head until I got dizzy and decided watching the clouds was a better use of my time. The Audi ate up the road and we had time to stop at a Starbucks south of Knoxville and zip through the city before morning traffic got heavy. I ate a couple of Danish and drifted off in a self-absorbed sugar stupor.

It wasn’t until we turned north on I-81 that I noticed Jubal and Sidney laughing at each other’s science puns and having entirely too much fun for a mission like ours. The Ph.D. and the dropout liked each other and could communicate in ways so far beyond me it was like listening to a Klingon mating song. Envy, green and catty, poked around at the edges of my thoughts.

A rain shower north of Morristown gave me the opportunity to stick my nose in their private little party. “Hey Sid, can your drone fly in the rain?”

“Probably not the best idea.”

Jubal said, “Weather map, radar.” His GPS screen switched to a real time radar image of the area around us.

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