Don't Look Behind You (Don't Look Series Book 1) by Emily Kazmierski (summer reads .txt) 📗

Oh.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Thanks.” My mind is struggling to keep up. Grumpy Pants Esau just asked me how I am? Do I look sick or something? Because there’s no way he could have noticed that my eyes were threatening tears, could he?

“The stage crew could use your help painting the sets today.” Esau’s nostrils flare as he inhales. His eyes flick over my face before he turns away. Snapping the rubber band, he stalks off.

And there it is. He was simply wondering why I wasn’t already working on something. That makes a whole lot more sense than the ludicrous idea that he was actually checking on my emotional wellbeing. Because come on.

Fiona moves closer. “You’re sure you’re okay? I thought you were going to lose it for a second there.”

“I’m fine, really.” Shaking my head to clear it, I point toward where some of the members of the stage crew are painting a fake window on to one of the backdrops. “I’d better get to work before I get yelled at.”

Viv makes chomper hands again.

Fiona chuckles. “Or eaten.”

I’m in the back of the theater, wearing a trash bag to protect my clothes from paint, when I hear a loud shutter click. Spinning around, I see Esau standing in the center of the stage talking to a middle-aged woman in a bright red skirt suit. Beside her is a twenty-something guy holding a professional camera with a lens that’s so long it’s obscene.

“Who is that?” I hiss at the girl nearest me, Josie.

“No idea,” Josie says. Unphased, she goes back to painting the hydrangea bush she’s been working on for the past hour.

Esau and the woman talk back and forth for a few minutes before I notice she’s holding a recorder in one hand. The camera man is tramping around the theater, taking photos of anything and everything. He takes a photo of Fiona coiling a cable and asks her if she’ll sign a release in case they use the image.

“Definitely! I’ve never been in the newspaper,” she replies, signing the page on the clipboard he holds out to her.

Newspaper? Wait, that woman is a reporter?

My stomach churns and I’m pretty sure I’m turning green. Lurching up from where I sit on an overturned milk crate, I tear the plastic bag off my body and wad it up into a ball. “I have to go to the bathroom,” I tell no one in particular. Then I bolt toward the rear stage door, away from the reporter lady and her co-hort’s giant camera.

I cannot be in the newspaper. I don’t know anything about the madman who’s after me, but drawing attention to myself cannot be a good idea.

When the time is right...

Fiona yells, “Wait!” as I pull the door closed behind me.

Leaning back against the prickly stucco wall of the structure, I take a couple of deep breaths. Everything is under control. The reporter didn’t talk to me at all. She doesn’t have my name. And the camera man would have had to get a release if he wanted to use any photos of me. Which he didn’t do. So I’m fine. There aren’t going to be any mentions or photos of me in the local newspaper.

No extra incentive for anybody to come after me.

Still, that was way too close.

Chapter 11

Day 113, Monday

Four days since the fiasco at Noah’s house. Now that I’ve had a lot of time to agonize over how I reacted, I feel terrible about it. Seeing those articles and photos, the map of places where there have been possible sightings of the Mayday Killer over the past four months, I panicked. I made some assumptions about Noah that probably weren’t fair.

There’s no way someone as gentle and sweet as Noah is helping a killer.

I should have let him explain why he’d gathered all of that stuff behind his bedroom door instead of running out of there like a small dog running from a pack of coyotes. Which is why, when I sit down next to him in art class, I don’t look away when he glances at me.

When I don’t immediately turn away, he perks up.

“Does this mean you’re talking to me again?”

A quick survey of the classroom confirms that there’s no one sitting in the desks immediately surrounding ours. There are a couple of guys in the far corner washing paint brushes in the sink. A girl in the front row is doing pencil sketches in a notebook.

“Yeah. Look, Noah, about Sunday—”

“I’m sorry you had to see that,” he jumps in with an earnestness that makes my chest loosen.

“It’s okay. You’re allowed to have hobbies. It’s just that I, all of the Mayday Killer stuff, freaked me out.”

Noah lowers his head. “It sort of freaks me out too.”

We look shyly at each other, our gazes skimming before pulling away. I’ve missed talking to him the past few days, and his candid admission brings home how much. There’s something so easy and open about Noah, like what I see is what I get. There’s no pretense with him.

“So you’re not a serial killer fanboy?” I ask, still needing to hear his answer.

Noah’s eyes widen behind the black frames of his glasses. The incredulous laugh that bursts from his mouth is sort of cute. “So that’s what you thought. Huh.”

I shrug. It sounds ridiculous now that he’s said it out loud. Noah is far too kind and gentle to be a secret murder fanboy. Or worse.

“It’s nothing like that. The thing is, I’m interested in true crime stuff. And since the Mayday Killer is still at large…”

Mr. Baugh comes in carrying a stack of old newspaper clippings that he plunks down on his desk.

The girl in the desk on Noah’s other side shifts closer to him. Is she listening in on this conversation? She takes out a book and starts to read.

I pull my shoulders down from around my ears. I’m getting more than a little paranoid.

Noah glances over at