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Jamison sniffed the air and moaned. “God, just the aroma makes me want to eat everything in the place.”
A woman appeared from behind a curtain at the back of the counter.
She looked thin and worn and her face was heavily wrinkled, andher hair was shot through with gray. But her smile was pleasant and her eyes twinkled as she looked at them.
“What can I do for y’all?” she asked.
Decker said, “Two large coffees to go.”
Jamison pointed to some items in one of the display cases. “Are those carrot cake muffins?”
“Yes, ma’am, they are.”
“Awesome. We’ll take two.”
“That’sa right good choice. They’re fresh out of the oven. I’m Linda Drews. I own the place.”
“Hi, Linda. I’m Alex and this is Amos. So why name the place the Peacock Bakery?”
“When I was just a little thing I always wanted me a peacock as a pet. That ain’t never happened. So this was the next best thing. And the sign sure is eye-catching, or so folks tell me.”
As Drewsprepared their order, Decker said, “This place looks pretty new.”
“Open less than a year. I always loved to bake, so why not make money off it? And I like being the boss. And I’m making good money. Have the fulfillment center partly to thank. We get a lot of traffic from there. All the heavy lifting and walking makes people hungry for dang sure.”
“I bet,” said Decker.
As she poured the coffees Linda Drews said, “How’d you hear about us?”
“Cindi Riley.”
“Oh, right. Cindi’s real nice. She getsthe word out about local businesses. We’re all trying to bring the town back.”
“She also told us about your son. He was a friend of hers.”
Drews had leaned down and was using a pair of tongs to pull out two muffins from the displaycabinet. She stiffened at Decker’s words.
“Cindi told you about Keith?”
“Yeah. It sounded really sad.”
Drews slowly put the muffins in a bag.
“He was my only child. You never get over that.”
“I’m sure. It was an overdose, Cindi said,” noted Decker.
Drews nodded. “Baronville’s got lots of problems. Biggest one is drugs. Now, I admit, Iwas on ’em for a long time. Started out on Percocet and then became a mixer.”
“A mixer?” said Jamison.
“I’d mix the Percocet with Oxy, Xanax, hell, anything I could think of. I’d do a couple hundred pills a week.” She put the bag of muffins on the counter. “How old do you think I am?”
Decker shrugged and looked uncomfortable. “I don’t like guessing people’s ages.”
“I just turned fifty.”
She smiled sadly at their surprised looks. “Drugs ain’tbeauty aids. I know I look like I’m sixty-five.”
