Don't Look Behind You (Don't Look Series Book 1)

by Emily Kazmierski

Esau’s deep chuckle as he pushes his French braids behind his shoulders is like a delicious licorice vine. One isn’t nearly enough.

  At one point during the run through, Esau slings his arm over the back of my chair, and his fingers brush my bare shoulder. My skin tingles at his touch, making me sit up straight.

  Marisa’s attention catches on my face and she fumbles a line before continuing red-faced.

  I’ve been dreading it, but I’m going to have to talk to her about her focus on stage. I have no idea what I’m going to say. Esau isn’t that scary. He won’t hurt you. You can’t let his brooding mess with your focus when you’re performing. Your entire cast is counting on you, and you’re letting them down. I mentally touch each reason and cast it aside. I haven’t found the right words yet, but she’s my friend and she deserves my honesty. All of it I can give her.

  “Okay, you might have been right about the lighting cues,” Esau says in my ear after the act is over. “It looked really good.”

  The warmth of his breath makes me shiver. “Care to say that again?”

  “Not a chance.” Standing, he offers me his hand with the rubber band. “Let’s talk it over with Fiona and Dariel. See how they feel about changing it up permanently.”

  “Wait, you’re actually going to ask someone else’s opinion? Are you ill?” I press the inside of my wrist to his forehead, suddenly aware of how close it brings my body to his. Quickly, I pull back, but not before Esau hits me with a devilish grin.

  “If I was sick, would you take care of me?”

  “Not on your life. You’d probably want to be waited on hand and foot.” I mime ringing a tiny bell with one hand.

  He crosses his arms, arching one of his thick eyebrows. “Too bad. You’d be a cute nurse.” Leaning in, his mouth stops inches from mine. “I’d like to see you again sometime. You in?”

  I nod quickly, too ruffled to speak.

  Of course Fiona is right behind him and hears the whole thing. I have never seen such a clear “Told you so” look in my life. She’s never going to let me hear the end of it. And I haven’t even told her about sneaking out to see him the other night. Or our almost kiss.

  There’s a deputy’s vehicle sitting under one of the lights in the parking lot when we tromp outside after rehearsal. It’s empty.

  I scan around but don’t see them. Aunt Karen’s car is parked at the curb, and I climb inside. We exchange mechanical pleasantries as she pulls out of the lot. I’m disappointed when our conversation dies. There’s no news of Justin. My guardian would have told me if there was, because she knows how scared I am.

  My focus is on the black and white parked on the street. I thought the increased law enforcement presence would make me feel better, more protected, but it doesn’t. Instead, seeing the deputies and their cars twice today is only freaking me out. Every time I see them I’m reminded of the fact that unlike all of my classmates, I’m not just another teenager trying to get through high school. I have to look over my shoulder when I walk. The Mayday Killer is still out there somewhere, fixated on me. Waiting to strike.

  Chapter 22

  Day 133, Sunday

  Murky olive-brown water flows along the cement irrigation ditch, occasionally interrupted by large pipes that breach the walls and siphon water off to flood a field here or there. A welcome break in the heat wave has the people working in the fields moving just a little faster. A woman in a wide-brimmed hat waves at Noah and me from the middle of a pumpkin field.

  Noah gives a friendly wave back. Mine is less steady because I’m too busy trying not to trip over the uneven, dry-cracked ground under our feet.

  “Where are you taking me?” I ask. “If you’re looking for a place to murder me, I’ll point out that there are several witnesses right now.”

  A surprised laugh breaks from Noah as he turns to grin at me. “If I was trying to murder you, I wouldn’t do it here, silly. I’d do it at the dairy. The cows would keep quiet. They like me.”

  I give a quiet, tentative laugh. “I’ll have to get them on my side, then.”

  “Good luck with that. It would be easier getting me on your side.”

  There’s something warm in his tone that draws my gaze to his. “Yeah? How do I do that?”

  Noah smiles at his dingy shoes. “You’re off to a good start.”

  A pleased flush threatens to stain my already warm skin, but I fight it. I can’t go there. Not with Noah. It wouldn’t be fair.

  Better to focus on the well he mentioned. When I look ahead, there’s a low stone ring covered by a weathered sheet of plywood. It doesn’t look at all like I’d pictured. “That’s a well?”

  “Sure is. I dropped a brand new pocket knife down there one time.”

  “You did?”

  “Yep, and I was too embarrassed to ask my dad to replace it. Never got a new one. Want to see?” Noah shakes his head in amusement before sliding the plywood off the top of the cistern and propping it against the well’s cinder block masonry. A metal grate covers the opening, and there’s water inside, about twenty feet down. Noah’s and my silhouettes paint the still water in the late afternoon light.

  “Come on, let’s keep going.”

  After a few more minutes Noah stops, gesturing at a spot where the irrigation ditch widens before narrowing toward an underground pipe. The water is lower here, and bugs make faint ripples over the surface of the water.

  “No way, it’s still here!” In an effortless leap, Noah flies across the ditch and lands in a poof of dust on the other side. Bending down, he picks up a rusty bucket with orange twine dangling from the bent handle.

  “A bucket?” I ask.

  “We used to use this to catch crawdads. My older brother and me,” he clarifies when he sees the question on my face.

  “Crawdads?”

  “Yeah. Look. See?” He points toward the shallow water, and I follow his direction. Sure enough, when I look closer, I can see what look like tiny lobsters along the bottom of the ditch. They’re difficult to see because of how their shells resemble the gray-brown concrete around them.

  “So that’s what the net is for,” I say, holding up the pool skimmer Noah asked me to carry. His hands are full with the small cooler and a still-watertight bucket.

  Noah grins. “Anza and Mattie have never had crawdads, and I figured it was time to rectify that situation. Plus, you like shellfish, don’t you?”

  I bite my lip, not sure how to respond. I’m supposed to be a vegetarian, so I was hoping he’d missed that time I mentioned how I wished it was soft-shell crab the day the cafeteria was serving tuna sandwiches.

  “Um, I’m not really eating meat right now.” I shrug lamely.

  “More for me. Ready to learn how to catch them?”

  “We’re not using the bucket and string method?” Kate, Nate, and the rest of us used the bucket method to try to catch minnows at camp that summer. We never caught a single one, but when we came back to our cabins barefoot and soaking wet, I’d never felt more alive. Now those kids’ parents are dead.

  I climb out of the sadness threatening to drag me down, because if I let it, he wins. Pasting on an expression of interest, I focus on the boy squatting in the dirt beside me.

  Noah laughs, his smile widening. “We’d be here all day. Now that you mention it…” He trails off, his eyes catching mine.

  I clear my throat. “Better not. Aunt Karen wants me home by sunset.”

  “Right. Okay.” He runs a hand through his hair, and I try to ignore the disappointment that flashes over his expression. “Here’s a foolproof way to catch crawdads. Just don’t tell my mom I’m using her drumsticks, okay?”

  A few minutes later, after he’s shown me how to catch the crustaceans using the pool net, a raw chicken leg, and some string, he brings up a topic I’m sure everyone at school wonders about but hasn’t dared to ask.

  “Why did you move in with your aunt anyway? Where are your parents?” He wets his lips before looking up from the bucket of cra
wdads to meet my eyes.

  A pit forms in my stomach. I don’t want to talk about this. Don’t want to have to lie to him.

  “It’s okay. We don’t have to talk about it. Forget I asked.”

  I shake my head. Maybe talking, confiding in someone will help. Aunt Karen offered to send me to a therapist, but I refused. It had seemed stupid at the time, because talking about my parents wouldn’t bring them back. But maybe that wasn’t the point.

  “They were killed,” I whisper, my fingers tightening on the string as Noah ties another chicken leg to its far end. “It was… sudden.”

  “Oh geez. I’m so sorry, Megan. I shouldn’t have asked. I just wondered—”

  “No, it’s okay. I don’t mind.” Somehow, it’s the truth. Confiding in Noah about my parents being gone has lightened the constant weight on my chest the tiniest amount. He’s the first person I’ve said these words to since it happened. Not even Aunt Karen has asked me about it, not really, since she already knew what had happened when I came to live here. I take in a breath. I can’t tell Noah everything, but I can give him this. Especially after he told me about his older brother.

  “Was it the car accident?” He points vaguely at the scar on my cheek before yanking his hand back through his hair.

  My throat tightens. Unable to speak the words, I nod.

  We fall quiet. I’m not sure where to go from here, so I watch the chicken leg as it bobs in the water. Slowly, crawdads approach it, taking timid nibbles before latching on.

  “My brother was killed, too,” Noah whispers.

  I look at him, surprise bright in my eyes.

  “I was nine. We’d run out of popsicles, and I wanted one. Mom and Dad couldn’t take me; they were still at work, but Simeon, he agreed to go down to the gas station and pick one up for me. He didn’t come back.”

  I sit in stunned silence, trying to put together words and force them past my lips.

  “What… what…?”

  He trails a finger through the dirt at our feet. “Someone robbed the gas station. They killed the cashier, and Simeon. All for some measly cash. If I hadn’t begged for a popsicle...”

  Horror fills me at this. My heart breaks for Noah as I realize that he blames himself for his brother’s death. “That wasn’t your fault. You can’t blame yourself for that. You were just a kid with a popsicle craving. You weren’t the one with the, the gun.” I swallow. His brother’s death wasn’t his fault. Not like me.

  Because my parents’ death? That’s 100 percent my fault.

  “It was a knife.” The last word is hesitant, as if it’s still difficult for him to say all these years later. Maybe it never gets easier at all.

  I focus on the crawdads in the water, hoping to distract myself. Keep the threatening tears at bay. I do not want to cry out on a levy next to a bucket full of miniature lobsters. Once there are half a dozen clinging to the bait with their tiny pinchers, I glance at Noah. “Ready?”

  He nods, holding the pool net low over the water.

  I withdraw the chicken leg with a quick jerk, and he scoops up the crawdads before they realize they’ve been pulled out of the water. Dumping them in the bucket, he counts with one finger. Then he sets the net down and meets my eyes.

  Somehow, despite the heartache Noah has carried since his brother’s death, he hasn’t let it stifle him. Noah is passionate about his family, school, his favorite anime. Noah is still among the living. He smiles easily, for goodness’ sake. Not like he has to dredge it up from the bowels of his sadness.

  “That’s how I got into true crime. I thought I could solve it.” He goes quiet. He never managed it. They never found his brother’s killer. Just like they can’t find the man who slaughtered my parents.

  Even so, Noah hasn’t let his tragedy stop him from growing, from reaching.

  I can’t let it stop me either.

  “Hey Noah?” I ask, knowing that once I utter these words, I can’t go back. I’m going to find proof that Justin is helping the Mayday Killer. No matter what Aunt Karen thinks. This is so much bigger than her now.

  “Yeah?”

  “Let’s solve it together.”

  Chapter 23

  Day 136, Wednesday

  After my parents were murdered, I never thought I’d be in the right headspace to try growing orchids again. I stalled, all growth stunted by the grisly images that filter through my mind every other second of every day. But as day after day passes, I think about the blood, the screaming, less. Not never, just less. The worst part is no longer the mental picture of my parents’ bodies sprawled on the floor in pools of their own blood, but the guilt. The knowledge that I could have stopped it.

  Or that my body should have been crumpled and broken on the ground beside them.

  That buzzing in my fingers has returned. The desire to touch something green and watch it grow under my tender, careful care. I’m blaming it on Noah’s optimism and strolling between field after field of growing pumpkins on Sunday. Amid all those signs of life, how can I not want to be a part of it?

  Aunt Karen said there were grow lights in the garage.

  My head cocks to the side as I unlock the door leading into the unfinished room, wondering what other junk the previous occupants abandoned.

  Shelving lines three of the walls, boxes in tall, rickety stacks. Their labels are almost indecipherable. It doesn’t matter, though. On the bottom shelf in the corner are the grow lights. They’re huge, long and industrial. Whoever was using these was serious about their weed. I sniff, trying to detect the smell of pot, but all I get is must. Damp cardboard. It’s been so long all traces are gone.

  I draw up short. After a time, are all traces of my parents going to disappear from my life? Already my memories of them are growing softer, their edges blurry. I press my eyes closed, trying to picture them. I let out a relieved breath when they materialize in my mind, reading companionably on the couch after I’d headed to my room for the night.

  Running my fingers along one of the long industrial lights, I shake my head. These fixtures are way too big to use in my bedroom. Maybe Aunt Karen will let me grow a couple of plants in the east-facing window in the kitchen instead. Small ones with bright blooms.

  In the house a door shuts, making me jolt against the nearest shelving unit. On the bottom shelf, a large manila envelope slides out of a half-closed box and onto the concrete floor at my feet. Bending down, I pick it up. Peek inside.

  My eyes expand as my heart thuds against my ribs. What the hell? Trembling fingers make the image shake even as I try to absorb what I find. It’s a photograph of me talking to Esau, sitting on his truck’s tailgate. The same photo that was on Justin’s murder board in his house.

  Tremors cut through me as I dump out the items in the envelope. A gasp tears from my mouth when I see the contents—photos, articles, maps. All of the bits and pieces from Justin’s stalker board are here, stuffed into a box in Aunt Karen’s garage.

  I can’t believe what I’m seeing. With shaking hands, I take out my phone and snap photos for evidence. That way I’ll have it on me if I need it.

  When I’m done, I shove them all back into the envelope. How did this junk get in here? How did Justin sneak it past the sheriff’s department and into this house?

  My eyes land on the windows along the outer wall of the space. They’re not too small for someone to climb through. Not barred. I creep closer to get a better look and see one of the windows is unlocked. A broken spider web hangs in one corner as if recently disturbed.

  Justin has been in this room, hiding the evidence of his creepy obsession with me. He hid his scrapbook supplies in the last place any of us would look. Worse, the only barrier between him and the rest of the old house was the locked garage door.

  I’m turning to flee when someone runs past the window, making me twist around to face it. I catch a glimpse of a black shirt and dark jeans before whoever it is vanishes beyond the window.

  Heart and feet pounding, I fling open
the door into the house and make for the front window. Scan the yard. The street. The abandoned house across the road.

  There’s no one there.

  A vehicle turns the corner out of sight before I can get a good look at it. Was that him, back to get his things? Or worse?

  I clutch at my chest, trying to get my breathing under control enough to call Aunt Karen and tell her what I found. That the evidence the authorities need to level charges at Justin is sitting in the middle of the spotless garage floor. This time I’ll make them listen.

  I sit on the living room sofa, staring in shock as a deputy takes custody of the envelope of horrors. My skin crawls as if covered in an army of tiny ants. What if Justin came by to visit Aunt Karen and snooped around the house? Looked in my room? Went through my stuff?

  Bile rises in my throat. No, he can’t have. I would have noticed if someone had riffled through the few things I own. Wouldn’t I?

  Once the deputy with the envelope is outside, the other approaches Aunt Karen. She rushed home in a panic when I called her at the grocery store to tell her what I’d found. She’d apologized but when I pressed, she wouldn’t say what for.

  It wasn’t encouraging.

  “Ma’am,” the deputy says, glancing at me.

  “Yes?” Aunt Karen asks.

  “We’ll catalogue everything we found, but it looks like everything is at least a few days old. Doesn’t look like he’s added much to his collection.” She goes on, talking about increasing patrols and something about Aunt Karen’s home security system, but it all turns like buzzing between my ears. The woman charged with my care is shielding someone dangerous. If push comes to shove, I can’t trust her.

  My stomach jerks and I make for the bathroom. Dry heaves rack my frame.

  Once I’m done, I stumble out of the bathroom toward the stairs.

  Aunt Karen stands, her face lined with concern. “Megan? Are you okay?”

  “Am I okay?” All of the panic and fear and anger flashes to the surface until I can’t see straight.

  “Don’t take that tone with me.” Her hands land on her hips. The perfect picture of authority. As if.