Gina Cresse - Devonie Lace 04 - A Deadly Change of Power by Gina Cresse Page B

me?” Ronnie said.  “I don’t know why you don’t move here.”
    Jake smiled at her.  “Believe me, it’s very tempting.  For now, we have to do the tele-relationship thing and grab every weekend opportunity we can to get together.  You know how demanding my job is.  All the engines are in Detroit.”
    “Not all the engines,” Ronnie reminded him.
    I used this opportunity to bring up the subject.  “So I take it you’ve got some interest in the engine Ronnie has in her car?  The heat-exchange engine?”
    Jake frowned.  “It’s a very interesting concept.  It has a lot of potential.”
    Ronnie rolled her eyes.  “It has more than potential.  It could change the world.”
    “You don’t understand.  It’s very complicated.  You can’t just upset the balance of nature, so to speak,” Jake said.
    “Oh, I understand,” Ronnie said.  “I understand that you’re in the back pockets of the oil companies.  I understand that they’re a bunch of greedy vultures, picking meat off the bones of the working-class people who are struggling to make ends meet.”
    Craig and I sat back and watched this argument f lare up.  It was obviously a re hashing of something that had been discussed over and over in the past.
    “Ronnie, I’ve told you this a thousand times.  The whole world’s economy is a delicate balancing act.  If you pull the legs out from under an industry as big as oil, it’d be like knocking the earth off its axis.  You know how many people would be out of jobs?  How many companies would go under?  It’d be a disaster.”
    Ronnie gritted her teeth.  “It wouldn’t happen overnigh t, Jake.  There’d be time to regroup.  There’d still be jobs — they’d just be in a different industry.  It’s gonna happen anyway, and you know it.  It’s not just a matter of cost to the consumer, either.  We can’t continue to pump four hundred and sixty-nine million metric tons of carbon into the air every year and expect to be a healthy race of people.”
    Craig and I exchanged glances.  I had no idea the number was so high, and I could tell by the surprise on his face that he didn’t, either.
    Jake placed his palms over his eyes and shook his head.  “Don’t get started on the whole environmental thing again.  Today’s engines burn so much cleaner than they used to — ”
    “And there’s so many more of them now that the net effect is the same amount of poison is released into the air.  How many more people have to have some part of their body cut off because of a cancerous tumor before someone has the guts to turn the titanic?”
    “Don’t start on the whole cancer thing — ”
    “Don’t start?  When my mother was thirty, she couldn’t name one personal acquaintance who either had or died of cancer.  When I was thirty, I could name a dozen off the top of my head — and they were all under fifty.”
    “But that’s only because we’ve gotten better at diagnosing cancer.  She had to know people who died of something, but no one put the label ‘cancer’ on it because they didn’t know it back then.”
    “Oh, come on, Jake.  We’re not talking about the middle ages, here.  Pull your head out of the sand.  You sound just like the fast-talking bull-sellers who continue to shovel that theory down our throats every chance they get.  Like we’re too stupid to see the facts for ourselves.”
    Jake was silent. 
    Ronnie was just getting started.  “And at thirty-six, my mother died of lung cancer.  She never smoked a day in her life.  Explain that one to me, Mr. Monroe.”
    Craig reached across the table for the bottle of Merlot.  “More wine, anyone?”
    I knew what Craig was thinking.  Let’s get some more alcohol in them to settle them down before they get into a knock-down-drag-out brawl in the middle of the dining room. 
    Ronnie took in a short, quick breath and put her hand over her mouth.  She was embarrassed.  “I’m sorry.  I shouldn’t