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

The car slows even more as it approaches the orchard. My blood is pumping so loud I can’t hear anything else. What if it’s not my guardian? What if it’s him? It was so stupid to leave the house in the middle of the night. He told me he planned to come for me when the time was right, and I handed him the opportunity on a silver platter.

My shoulders sag as the car almost stops along the curb and then moves past the orchard.

Not Aunt Karen. Not a murderer come to take his final victim. Still, something about the car is bugging me.

“Did you see the giant dice that guy had hanging from his mirror?” Esau shakes his head.

“Dice?” My breath hiccups in my throat. “That car. What color would you say it was?”

“Blue or green? It was hard to tell in the dark.”

A blue car with dice in the mirror. Just like the one Fiona said followed us to the beach. It can’t be a coincidence. He tried to follow me out here.

Suddenly all I want to do is hide under the covers of my bed at Aunt Karen’s house. Where it’s safe. Where the monsters dare not come. Jumping down from the tailgate, I round the truck and pull on the door handle. “I’d like to go home now, please.”

Esau follows me. “Is there something wrong?”

“No. I just want to go back.”

Esau looks puzzled, but doesn’t argue. We ride in silence through the deserted streets, me checking the rearview mirror every few seconds the whole way. My nerves are strung tight, my eyes narrowed as if any second a car’s headlights will blind me. Esau keeps glancing my way, clearly wondering why my mood turned on a dime. His hands tighten on the steering wheel as he focuses on the road ahead. I don’t take a full breath until after Esau boosts me onto the patio cover so I can crawl inside my window and lock it with a snick.

Minutes pass as I change into my pajamas and slip into bed. Only then do I allow myself to replay tonight in my head. The way Esau’s gaze dipped to my mouth. My heart jogging behind my breastbone. His large hands on my waist as he boosted me easily.

Down the street, the low grumble of a car approaches. Heart skittering, I scramble out of bed and peer into the dark. Did Esau forget something? Is he coming back to finish what we started? No. It’s a dark sedan. My stomach clenches. It looks like the same one that drove past the orchard.

Whoever is in that car followed me home.

Chapter 19

Day 129, Wednesday

Something scrabbles through the underbrush, making me spin. Nothing is there. I take a deep breath, trying to quiet my unease. I’ve been jumpy for days and I can’t seem to shake the gut instinct that something is wrong. That he is closing in.

The sheriff and his guys have been looking all over town for the stolen blue car but haven’t been able to find it. It’s freaking me out, but I won’t let it rule me. Which is why I’m standing in the middle of the eucalyptus grove behind Aunt Karen’s house taking photos. The way the sun dapples the densely packed earth, the flashes of white winking in the breeze, makes my fingers itch to shoot. All around, the gray-green bark of the trees soothes my nerves. My shoulders settle away from my ears as I crouch down to snap a few photos.

Eucalyptus trees sway all around, scattered leaves spinning and twirling as they cascade to the ground. In the branches overhead, a crow caws, cutting through the rippling heat of the late afternoon. There’s a bit of a respite under the boughs where I am sitting butt in the dirt, but it’s still far warmer than I’m used to. Fine baby hairs stick to my neck under my ponytail.

My phone goes off in my pocket. Noah’s texting, asking when I’m coming over.

Oh crap. We’re supposed to get together to work on our art project.

I’d gotten so lost in taking photos of the grove that I’d forgotten. I’ll have to hustle because I’m already late. Shooting him a message to tell him I’m on my way, I go inside.

“I’m ready to go to Noah’s,” I call as I step into the house. The only greeting I get is the aged structure’s creaking. My guardian is not in the kitchen or the living room. My feet thump up the stairs and I raise my fist to knock on the master bedroom door. Something stops me, and instead I hover near the door, listening.

Frowning, I go back downstairs. That’s when I spot the sticky note on the front of the microwave. Was needed at the store. Be back soon.

Great. Noah lives all the way on the other end of town and I don’t want to walk. It’s not safe. I can’t ask him to come get me, because he doesn’t have car seats for Anza and Mattie in his car. Chewing on my lip, I glance out the front window. Justin’s truck is parked in his cracking driveway, so it looks like our neighbor is home. Aunt Karen did say I could ask him if I needed anything. And that one time he drove me home from school wasn’t terrible.

I lock the front door and pick my way across the street, not bothering to avoid stepping on the fissures in the asphalt like I did when I was a little kid. It’s not like it’s going to break my mother’s back.

Paint peels off the wooden steps leading up to the front porch. A large plastic pot sits to one side of the wooden front door, its plant shriveled and blackened. From the thick layer of dust on the worn wood, I’m guessing that Justin expends all