Page 45 of Sugar Coated Secrets

I lift my hand to shade my eyes from the sun. “I need to make a delivery.”

“I can take you up to a garage so you can see it before it gets fixed.”

“Is it too far out? I was heading down this road.”

He gives me an appreciative glance that makes me lose my appetite.

He secures the cooler in the back of his tow truck and the van on top of the flatbed. I get in the truck and pull down the hem of my dress.

Dean clears his throat. “What are you doing delivering cakes this far out from town?”

“We all need to make a living, Dean. I’m sure you understand. It’s like asking you what a guy like you is doing towing cars this far out.”

His watery eyes tinged with red around the white find mine. “There is only one difference, Miss Webster. No one would take a second look at a greasy old fat fuck like me.”

He said it, not me, but I get his point.

The truck’s engine rumbles low as it lunges forward, sounding like a purring cat, mixing with the air whirring from the air conditioner.

At least it was cold, but the cabin smelled like aged gas and stale cigarettes. The kind of smell you would have to shower to get out of your hair.

He nudges toward the side of the road, the tree line whizzing by. “I saw you peering through the trees when I pulled up. It’s hard to see it, but that’s old man Moody’s cabin.”

“Does he still live there?” I ask curiously.

“Don’t know,” he says with a shrug. “He’s an old bastard. It’s why they call him old man Moody. Probably why he lives out here in the woods.”

“Why do you think he lives out here?”

“I think… maybe because he doesn’t like people, or maybe people don’t like him. He’s old, pushing seventy, but he’s a dirty old man.”

My stomach clenches. “What do you mean?”

“Likes ’em young.”

Bile rises in the back of my throat.

“How do you know that?” I’m trying to steady my breath and swallow down the nausea without him noticing. The bottled-up stench in here isn’t helping.

“You know how word gets around in this town. I’ve heard stories. Like how he got handsy with a cashier at the grocerystore. She was wearing a dress like you are, bent down to pick something up, and he just shoved his fingers up inside her.”

I cup my hand over my mouth, my fingers trembling. “Seriously?”

He laughs. “That’s what they say.”

I frown. “They didn’t arrest him?”

He shakes his head in disbelief. “He played the blind old man excuse. Conveniently provided a medical diagnosis that he was completely blind in one eye, and since he was old and the girl eighteen, they do what they always do in this town.”

“They brush it off, look the other way, like it’s some wild secret.”

“That’s right. No harm, no foul.”

My throat is full of acid, but I manage to ask, “Is he still alive?”

“I haven’t seen ’im. Not for a while. I thought maybe the son of a bitch died. Ain’t no one going to miss the sick bastard. I didn’t buy that blind excuse. I don’t think no one did, but the girl moved to another state, and old man Moody returned to his cabin with his peaches.” He laughs on the last part, finding it funny while I was falling apart inside.

We pass roadkill, and it’s a dog with his guts spilled out over the road. Probably didn’t see a car coming in the middle of the night.

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