Blue Ridge, Black Heart

By Geraldine Powell

Disgraced, disbarred and defriended, ex-lawyer Morgan Pike is nearly bankrupt and desperate for a paycheck. She accepts the only job she’s been offered in a year of looking—private investigator with a Chattanooga, Tennessee firm. Morgan has been with the company for a year. Her goal is to stay out of trouble and serve the remaining two years of her four-year suspension and return to her prior life as a defense attorney in Richmond, Virginia.
Bored by divorce and insurance cases and against the advice of her boss, she becomes involved in the search for a beautiful young woman who has disappeared without a trace. The case takes her from the Blue Ridge Mountains of north Georgia to the dark underbelly of post-Katrina New Orleans and back. Her unrelenting quest for the truth propels her into terrifying clashes with members of a violent survivalist cabal in the southern Appalachian Mountains. The investigation builds to a stunning and dramatic conclusion that no one saw coming.
Here is a short excerpt from the book:
“Sunday morning I took my first cup of coffee and sat at the café table by the sliding doors leading to the balcony of my apartment. I pulled my robe close and leaned back from the table. Something flashed in the glass door. The left side of my face erupted with the pain of a thousand wasp stings. The door spider-webbed with cracks radiating from a small hole. I recognized the sound of a bullet snapping past my head.
I sat stunned, shocked, uncomprehending. A second passed, then my body reacted. I dived for the floor just as the glass in the door disintegrated. A second bullet cracked through the room, tearing into the floor a foot from my face. A third shot blasted through the kitchen wall and smashed into the dishwasher.
I scrambled on hands and knees toward the bedroom. Three more bullets ripped through the walls of the apartment. Using the bed as a shield between me and the outside wall, I reached up to the nightstand, grabbed my phone and dialed.
“911. What is your emergency?”
“Someone’s shooting at me—again.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Geraldine Powell
• Release date: Aug 19, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311339362

Geraldine Powell

Many story tellers are home bodies but not Geraldine. She loves pushing her car to the limit on the race track and long quiet hikes in the mountains. She has been a waitress, a bartender, an oyster shucker, and a bicycle messenger. During her college years she sold encyclopedias in the coal fields of West Virginia. After college she managed a couple of construction companies. She is an award winning ceramic artist and for a short time owned an art gallery. Now she and her partner operate an orchid nursery. Powell lives with her partner, five cats and a dog on the side of Signal Mountain near Chattanooga. She has spent much of her life in the mountains of Tennessee and southern Virginia and has an abiding affection for the southern Appalachians. She also loves mystery novels. So it’s no surprise that her novels combines the two.She brings this broad experience and an unusual sense of humor to her novels."

Book preview

BLUE RIDGE, BLACK HEART

By Geraldine Powell

Copyright 2015 by Geraldine Powell

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address: Beth Frances Inc. Publishing, 711 Signal Mountain Road, PMB 155, Chattanooga, Tennessee, 37405

A book is never an individual effort and I want to dedicate this book to my two incredible editors, Noreen Marcus and Beth Cox, and thank them for their invaluable contributions to this project.

Chapter 1

I had expected this case to be a slam-dunk. But it took eight tedious days shadowing Paula Scott before one of my listening devices caught her making this date. If the dude showed I should be able to wrap this up today. Scott’s husband could divorce his wife, whose main talents seemed to be gambling and cheating. I could get back to Chattanooga this evening, enjoy a three-day weekend and head back out Monday for an insurance fraud case. Then repeat some variation on the theme for the next two years until my suspension is up and I can get my law license back.

I backed my old Honda into a secluded spot in the Hiwassee Inn parking lot. Shaded by a huge oak, it was a perfect place for what the boss called surveillance but I still thought of as spying. I slipped a Charlie Parker CD into the car’s sound system, secured my iPad against the steering wheel and settled back to wait.

Five minutes later Scott stopped her shiny silver Lexus in front of the motel office and went in. I pulled my camera bag from the backseat and placed my binoculars on the dash.

Scott returned to her car and drove down the line of rooms to number 42. I took my camera with its long lens out of the padded bag. I snapped a few pictures of her getting out of the car, mostly side and back images. One shot caught her and the Lexus’s license plate in the same frame.

She looked dowdy—twenty to twenty-five pounds overweight. She wore a loose calf-length gray dress and gray low-heeled pumps. A gray scarf covered her head, but dark hair too long for her age escaped its confines. And here I thought red was the color of adultery. Maybe she thought gray was a covert color.

She moved furtively, looking at the parking area, first one way, then the other, up and down the walkway. Yeah sugar, you should be paranoid. She dropped the key card three steps before reaching the door. As she retrieved it I managed a recognizable shot of her face.

A few minutes later a gold Escalade pulled in next to Scott’s Lexus. Where she seemed nervous, edgy, shrunk in upon herself, this trim, tanned, broad-shouldered guy got out of the SUV and stretched languorously.

Missing from his movements were Scott’s guilt and anxiety. He acted like he owned the world and this tryst had all the importance of stopping for a drink after work. Was she paying for it?

Scott must have been watching for him. She opened the door and waved to him. They embraced. My camera clicked.

My fist jerked involuntarily and I mouthed Gotcha! I get a kick out of catching a cheater, even if it makes me feel dirty.

I can live with contradictions. This was the only job I could find after my life imploded. It isn’t even a real job. I’m an independent contractor for Quad States Investigations in Chattanooga, Tennessee and still just a hair from bankruptcy.

The job might be distasteful but if I bailed I’d be down the tubes. My plan doesn’t include being homeless. If the price is a little guilt, so be it.

Well, Paula sweetie, enjoy the stud—it won’t be long before you’re driving a used Kia and spending your days saying, Welcome to Wal-Mart.

I noted the time—12:10 p.m.—then tapped speed dial for the office.

Quad States Investigations. This is Judy. How may I help you?

Hey Judy, it’s Morgan Pike. I have the license plate number of the guy plonking my target. Could you get Sidney to run it and have her call me back soonest?

Sure. Shoot.

Georgia, Union County, AXT 2306. The vehicle is a fancy new gold-colored Cadillac Escalade.

Got it. Back soon.

Thanks.

If this guy turns out to be a gigolo, it would be a great piece of evidence for the divorce case Scott’s husband is building. But as I transferred his photos to my iPad, I saw the crows-feet around his eyes and the wrinkles in his brow. He was a bit long in the tooth for the male escort trade. Oh well, you can’t have everything.

Fifteen minutes later Sidney called back.

Morgan, your guy is a real piece of work, she said. "His name is Franklin Watson. He’s from one of the old-money North Georgia families. He’s 57, divorced, two kids.

He’s had two paternity suits filed against him, both settled out of court. The last one was twenty years ago. He may have wised up a bit and that’s why he’s doing a married woman. Or he had a vasectomy.

Thanks Sid, I appreciate it. Not much there to make Jack Scott’s case any juicier but by the end of the day it would be more than enough.

Sitting and waiting on a stake-out sucks. Am I border-line ADD or just easily bored? Does it matter? I googled Frank Watson. There were hundreds of hits. Based on Sid’s report and his current activity the word scumbag described him to a tee. But virtually all the articles I scanned characterized him as a pillar of the community.

A few other articles implied the Watson family had been movers and shakers in North Georgia since the earliest days of European migration into the area. History doesn’t automatically confer class, of course. I had just found a book with three chapters on the Watson family when a movement of the curtain in room 42 caught my attention. I bookmarked the chapters and closed the iPad.

Watson left the room alone. I managed to snap two good shots of his smug face as he left. He sat in his SUV for a minute before he backed out of the parking spot.

Before he shifted into forward I could see him looking into the rearview mirror. He backed up and stopped his Escalade directly in front of me, blocking my escape. I was busted. He stepped out of his SUV. Shit, now what, I thought? Was he going to make a scene?

He flashed a billboard smile as he walked up to my window. You look a lot more interesting than the plumpster in room 42, he said. I’d love to get to know you. How about lunch or a drink later?

Chutzpah! This asshole had it in spades.

No, I don’t think so.

He handed me his card, If you change your mind give me a buzz.

He climbed back into his SUV, waved and drove off. What an arrogant shit.

Scott came out ten minutes after Watson left. A beatific Mona Lisa look radiated from her face, no nervousness now. Her hair was mussed. She hadn’t bothered with the scarf. Her makeup was gone.

That would be a valuable photo. Guess the old guy was pretty good. She reached into her purse and came out with car keys and the room key card. She smiled at the plastic card and tossed it into the bushes.

I gave her ten minutes and then retrieved the key card. That was a break for me. I got to keep the hundred dollars the boss at Quad States had allocated to bribe housekeeping for access. Hey, I need every dime.

The room smelled of sex. The stained sheets had been pushed onto the floor and a couple of towels hung on the desk chair. I took more pictures, opened my sample kit, pulled on latex gloves and swabbed the stains. You couldn’t have too much evidence. Then I saw the pièce de résistance. That shithead Watson had discarded his used rubber in the trash can. I dropped it into a plastic bag.

You are toast, Paula honey, I almost said out loud. Her DNA on the outside and his on the inside cinched it.

I stowed my camera and sample kit and double bagged the biologicals. Most of the ice in my cooler had melted and I needed fresh. That was a good excuse to stop at the Ocoee Grill in Copper Hill on the way home. I could beg a scoop of ice or two. Plus they have the best cheeseburgers and honeyed sweet tea in all of North Georgia and Southeast Tennessee.

As I walked into the restaurant Stacy called from behind the counter, Hey Morgan, your usual?

What else, I answered.

While Stacy filled my cooler with ice she recognized a familiar shape.

Yuck! Right next to your Coke?

I only have one cooler.

Next time I get down on my job I’ll remember this. She tucked an errant blonde curl behind her ear. Morgan, I have a friend whose daughter is missing. Do you have time to help her out?

I was looking forward to a long weekend. Has she called the cops?

She has. They say the girl probably ran away and they won’t lift a finger. The order bell dinged in the kitchen pass-through window.

That’s yours. Back in a sec. Stacy set my burger and fries on the table.

Need anything hon, wave.

I was dipping the last fry into the last bit of ketchup when Stacy sat down on the bench across from me and slid over a bowl of blackberry cobbler topped with a mound of vanilla ice cream. My treat.

She guessed, and rightly so, that the sweet, gooey, berry-stuffed cobbler would buy a listen. I wasn’t about to leave until the bowl was empty.

Morgan, I know Lani’s daughter. She’s a great kid, wouldn’t run off. The family really needs help. They don’t have a lot of money but they’re offering a reward.

Four months ago I showed the boss a flyer offering a reward for information about a missing fifteen-year-old. He just snorted. Missing-person reward work is a time-eating money loser that’ll suck you in, fuck with your head and break your heart.

I trusted my boss but Stacy hadn’t heard his assessment. She continued, The daughter, Carmen, is 20, in college, has a 4.0 and works part-time. She wants to be a veterinarian. The girl is sensible and grounded. She is not going to throw away all her hard work on a whim or a boy or point her car toward Hollywood and never look back like the cops think.

Friends, even close friends, don’t always know what goes on inside families. Carmen’s dad could be an abusive, beer-swilling asshole. Or parental pressure to maintain that grade-point average could have become too much.

Hundreds of other things could cause a young woman to bolt. I remember when I was that age and almost chucked it all.

Stacy, I’m not even a real PI. Investigating the disappearance of a young woman is beyond my ability.

Morgan, she said, pointing at my cooler, You have more skills than Lani and Joe. Please? Her head turned toward the door. Lani just got here. Talk with her for a few minutes, OK?

You called her?

She was in town today making deliveries.

I wasn’t halfway through the cobbler. Trapped by my sweet tooth again. The woman approaching my table was thin, tall and had a long oval face. Deep-set eyes that had a slight almond shape bracketed a small straight nose. I guessed her heritage was part European, part Asian, part African—an unusual mix for North Georgia. Her nose was red and sleeplessness had etched puffy circles beneath her bloodshot gray eyes.

She wore tan chinos and a white oxford top and green apron printed with the words Lani Lee Gourmet Goat Cheese. A green tote hung from a strap over her shoulder.

Stacy stood. Morgan Pike, Lani Lee, she said and hurried off to the kitchen.

The woman looked as though she would break into sobs any second. Back in my days at the public defender’s office I learned to dislike people who whined and cried and begged me or their deity for pity and a shorter sentence. But to Lani’s credit, she held herself together as she outlined the events of the previous few days.

Carmen had left her job at the regular time Tuesday but didn’t make it to school and hadn’t come home that night. Lani and her husband, Joe, had talked to the college administrators, Carmen’s friends and Katherine Addams, the owner of Black Creek Farm where Carmen worked part-time. They had called the police and local hospitals and searched the area for her car. They found nothing.

I listened patiently until she finished. The company I work for doesn’t take missing person cases.

Stacy said you work off the books occasionally. Like when you helped her sister last spring.

Lani, I’m a pretend PI. I’m just doing this temporarily.

Ms. Pike, we’ve hit a wall. We don’t know what to do. The sheriff’s department acts like we did something wrong, like it’s our fault. We don’t have a lot of money but we will pay for your help, she said. We can do all the work if you could just point us in the right direction.

Saying no was the safe thing to do. This wasn’t a job I knew how to do. When I practiced law and did any investigating at all it was well after the fact, never at a critical time, I said. I don’t have the experience you need.

Joe and I don’t have any experience at all. We can pay you. She took a photo from her apron and handed it to me. This is our daughter.

The face in the photo was long and oval like her mother’s but with a darker complexion. She had long, straight black hair, high cheek bones and topaz eyes. She was smiling tenderly at a baby goat in her arms. I felt myself getting pulled in.

Lani said, If our daughter were a blue-eyed blonde a multi-state task force would be searching for her.

Was she deliberately playing the race card or just voicing the bitter truth? Did it matter? I knew what she said was true and as a blue-eyed, near blonde myself, it hurt. Even after practicing law for eight years I still wanted to believe in equal justice.

Lani breathed deeply a couple of times, marshaling her resolve. I know about the 48-hour-rule.

I didn’t want to point out that nine out of ten kidnapped young women are raped and dead within three hours.

Lately there have been kidnappings where the guy has kept the girl…uh…hostage for weeks or months. If you could find enough evidence to get the cops to do their job… she trailed off.

Backing away was the smart choice but this woman seemed to have all my buttons mapped. If a bad guy had snatched her daughter I was out of my depth, but most likely Carmen had taken off for greener pastures.

If I asked, Sidney would run a comprehensive computer trace. We could pick up her last credit card charge and be able to tell Lani her daughter was hanging out in a zydeco club in New Orleans or whatever. It might give Lani closure and me an easy way out.

I have to be back in Chattanooga this afternoon and I don’t have much free time but I could start an electronic search and do a little digging, I said. No guarantees. No promises.

Thank you.

I need Carmen’s car tag, VIN, SS number, credit and bank card numbers. Recent pictures would help.

She reached into her tote, I have all of that here, she said and handed me a manila folder.

I leafed through the contents. Lani had included Carmen’s class schedule. Okay, this looks like a good start. If I need more I’ll call.

She grabbed my hand and squeezed. We really appreciate this. Thank you.

Now I have to go, I said. I’ll stay in touch. I left twelve dollars on the table. On the way to the door I looked for Stacy but she was probably hiding in the kitchen.

Back in Chattanooga I parked behind the Quad States building and slipped in the back door to the long hall that led to our cube farm and reception area. The first door on the left was open to Sidney Armstrong’s office.

Hey Sid, I said.

She turned from her computer. About time you got back. I was beginning to think you’d gone native.

I was only in North Georgia.

Like I said.

Sidney had quickly become my only friend at work. I still did not know her well, but that was changing. She was the only person at the firm who didn’t treat me like a refugee the boss had hired out of pity. We don’t have a lot in common other than androgynous names. She’s thin without trying, I’ve been fifteen pounds overweight since age twelve. She dropped out of high school. I’m over-educated. She’s a computer genius. I struggle with my iPad.

Sid grew up inner-city poor and my childhood was middle class. She has no respect for authority and I’m struggling to adopt her attitude. Sid has been known to skirt the law. A hacking miscalculation on one of Quad States’ clients brought her to the attention of our boss, Ed Hackett. He hired her rather than turning her over to the police. My one step over the line earned a four-year suspension by the bar association.

What’s up, girlfriend? Sid asked.

I’m looking for a missing young woman and hoped you could work your computer magic and help with a few things.

Client or a private thing?

Personal for now.

E-mail all the information and I’ll see what I can do.

Thanks, Sid.

Judy is our receptionist slash office manager. I stopped at her desk to pick up my next assignment. Bad news. She didn’t have all the info for my next job and said it would probably be Wednesday or Thursday before it came in. Have a nice few days off and all that.

Instead of a three-day weekend it could be five or six. A shame my bills never have a nice few days off.

There wasn’t much I could do about it. Associate investigator sounds romantic, doesn’t it? It’s not. No paid days off, no insurance, lousy money, paid by the job, not by the hour. And it had taken a year to find this job. One little ethics violation and I was disbarred, disgraced, defriended and virtually unemployable. Even Wal-Mart turned me down, saying I was over-qualified. Probably afraid I’d try to organize their employees.

Still, Quad States beats day labor at Manpower. I wouldn’t do well holding a stop/go sign for a highway crew.

Try to be upbeat, I told myself. Find Carmen Lee and make a few bucks.

I logged in my photo memory cards and evidence bags, making sure the bags went into the freezer. At my apartment I sent everything I had on Carmen to Sid and then enjoyed a long hot bubble-bath.

I tried to finalize the Scott report but my brain refused to focus. It kept drifting to Carmen Lee. I closed my laptop and walked over to Community Pie for a sausage and mushroom pizza to go.

Over the next hour I managed to finish the Scott report and send it in. I had just settled down with an episode of House Of Cards when Sid called.

No financial transactions in the last four days. No arrests, hospital admissions or bodies with her ID within a hundred-mile radius. My search programs work outward from here. I may have more in the morning, she said.

I’m also checking Jane Does fitting her description in hospitals and morgues. Nothing yet. The programs will continue looking. If anything clicks they’ll ping my cell phone. And then I’ll call you.

Thanks Sid, I appreciate your trouble.

Computer does the work now.

I turned off the TV and went to bed. I wanted to get in an early run tomorrow.

Chapter 2

Riverwalk is my favorite place to run. It’s a paved path wide enough for runners, bikers and walkers. It snakes through the Riverpark which runs along the Tennessee River from downtown Chattanooga to the Chickamauga Dam.

The runners high usually clears my head of nonsense and helps me focus on what’s important. Today I hoped the endorphins would flush the images of tortured women wearing Carmen Lee’s face from my mind. I thought eight miles should do the trick and turned at the four-mile mark expecting that by the time I got back to my old Honda I’d be free of the missing girl and be able to continue marking time in peace for the next two years until my suspension is over. I was so wrong.

I’d now been with Quad States for a year. Spending the next two years gathering evidence for crappy divorce cases or catching people cheating their insurance companies was not an exciting prospect. I hadn’t spent more than half my life in school to scavenge used condoms. I needed more of a challenge. The drudgery was making me stupid and my self-esteem had gone down the toilet long ago. Then I had a real brain fart. If Carmen had been kidnapped, finding her would be a challenge. It would be a nice ego boost.

Back at my apartment the phone had two messages from the Lee family and none from Sid. My first call went to Sid.

Any word? I asked.

No hello, good morning, how you doing? Just, ‘any word’?

Good morning Sidney. I hope this fine Friday finds you well.

Even with the sarcasm that’s better. No, nothing has popped. I’ll keep the programs running while I’m at work today, but if she doesn’t want to be found, it could take a while.

I was hoping you would tell me she’d moved to New York and enrolled in acting school or something.

Sorry.

After a quick shower I called Lani Lee. A deep male voice answered. Before I could finish introducing myself he asked, Did you find Carmen?

Are you Carmen’s father?

Yes, I’m Joe. Nervously he added, Lani’s down to the barn. Have you… Have… He trailed off. Expecting bad news?

No. We haven’t found her yet. Our computers are working through tons of data. It could take some time.

We don’t have time, he said. Somebody took Carmy. She wouldn’t have run off, ma’am. She gets straight As. She works hard, at school and her job. She wants to be an animal doctor. She… she wouldn’t run off. She needs more than computers looking for her.

It’s the first step.

Ms. Pike, she’s been took! Carmen needs second and third steps. Please help us. He paused and I heard him take a couple of deep breaths.

Mr. Lee, I have a few days free. If you would like I can come over there and dig around.

We’ll pay whatever you want.

For now, why not just cover my expenses to start and we’ll see if I can learn anything.

Okay.

I’ll start with the assumption she has been kidnapped. I need to tear her life apart and learn everything I can about Carmen, her friends and her routine.

We understand.

I checked the clock. It was pushing ten. Will you be home this afternoon? I asked.

Yes.

I’ll be there between twelve-thirty and one. I hurriedly tossed my last clean underwear, jeans, tops and a few miscellaneous toiletry items in my just-in-case bag and left Chattanooga for the mountains.

Friday traffic on I-75 north was heavy with semis and idiots and semi-idiots. Route 64 east was little better; fewer trucks, more idiots. Finally, east of Cleveland, the traffic eased. The four lanes turned into two lanes and climbed out of the Tennessee Valley into the southern Appalachian Mountains. I’d never been able to quite figure out which mountains are the Smokys, Cohutta or the Blue Ridge. Everybody I’ve asked has a different answer.

Quad States Investigations operates in Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia and North Carolina, and even if I’m not certain which mountains are which, this is my territory.

I could almost drive this road blindfolded. I know every restaurant, rundown strip mall, convenience store and country church with peeling paint and a neon Jesus Saves sign out front, every barbeque joint and white-water rafting outfit along the way. I remember the fancy homes and the ramshackle trailers, the burned out shells and the driveways with no building at the end.

Remembering landmarks had been a game once, a way to mark the passing miles—the nice brown house with the fish pond, next to Jack’s Auto Repair, followed by three ratty trailers, the one in the middle flying a Confederate battle flag in the front yard. After that, an old clapboard church and a thrift store. Then came a mile of trees before I passed an overlook parking area where a couple of wild turkeys usually waited for handouts. They probably shouldn’t be called wild anymore.

Above it all are some of the oldest and most beautiful mountains in the world and they look different every trip. The light quality varies, patterns of sun and shade change, foliage color differs depending on whether it’s wet or dry, early spring, mid-summer or fall. The appearance of the ridges and valleys changes from season to season, day to day, hour to hour, even minute to minute.

Three miles before Ducktown, Tennessee I made the left turn onto Little Beaver Creek Road. The first two homes I passed were brick with trimmed yards and painted fences. The further I drove the rougher the homes looked.

They went from brick to frame, to double-wides, to rusted single-wides; from homes with garages for cars, to those with trucks parked in driveways, to those with yards littered with empty beer cans and rusted hulks up on blocks.

Their roofs might be leaky, the tires on their pick-ups flat, but I was sure the deer rifles and twelve gauges were oiled and spotless. I suspected the people who lived in these places took better care of their guns than their children. I was ready to hear banjo music at any moment. Maybe Carmen had good reason to run.

A half-mile past the last ratty trailer, forest closed in on the road as it snaked through a series of bends. After the last turn the trees fell away on the right revealing open pasture and the Lee farm.

There was a small but well-maintained, older two-story farmhouse, white with green trim and a front porch with a two-person swing.

In back a barn and two out-buildings matched the home’s color scheme. A sorrel horse with a white blaze and three white socks grazed with a herd of twenty or so chubby milk goats near the tree line at the back fence.

There wasn’t a rusted-out car or an empty beer can in sight. The grass was trimmed and the flower garden was weed-free. Lani and a big golden retriever waited on the porch. The golden rushed out and greeted me enthusiastically. She ran several circles around my car, barked twice and sat by the driver side door. When I got out of the car she pushed her head under my palm.

Okay girl, you made your point. I stroked her head and scratched behind her ears.

She likes you, Lani said. Then, there are only a few people she doesn’t like.

The front door opened. Joseph Lee was thin like his wife and taller, probably six-two or three. He was handsome in a weathered sort of way. I guessed he was fifty, perhaps a little older. His rust- colored skin, broad face and nose, blue eyes, high cheekbones and straight black hair just beginning to show flecks of gray suggested he might be part African, part Native American and part northern European.

He walked with a slight limp as he came down the front steps. He extended his hand, a working man’s hand, hard with calluses, crisscrossed with scars.

I’m Joe, he said. Thank you for coming.

Let’s go into the house to talk, Lani said.

The living room was paneled in some light wood that had green and reddish streaks running through it. The furniture was plain, functional and looked comfortable. Lani motioned toward one of two large recliner chairs.

Would you like some fresh cider or sweet tea?

Not right now, thank you. I settled into