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

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.

“What tone am I supposed to take? You’re dating the guy who is helping a serial killer keep tabs on me. You didn’t even tell me about him in the first place.”

“Who I see in my personal time is none of your business.”

“It is if he’s a murderer’s assistant.”

Aunt Karen’s eyes narrow as she points a finger at the empty house across the street. “Justin isn’t helping anyone commit murder.”

“Then why all of the photos? He’s following me everywhere, day and night. Night!”

Her eyes squeeze shut, and she covers her face with one hand. “He’s an amateur photographer. Happy now?”

“No!” My heart and head are pounding. “Amateur photographer? Give me a break. He’s nothing more than a sleazebag, but for some reason you refuse to hear or believe me.”

Aunt Karen rears back as if she’s going to start shouting, hands anchoring at her hips, but barely reigns herself in. “Maybe we should table this. Discuss it when we’ve had the chance to cool off.”

It’s a dismissal if I’ve ever heard one. Shaking my head, I drag myself up to the second floor. Standing in the doorway to my room, I work up the courage to step inside. I look at everything as if I’ll be able to see proof of Justin’s presence if he did come in here. Everything looks the same. I think.

Hang on. Did I leave my headphones sprawled across the desk when I left this morning? I didn’t think so, but…

The old house groans. I shut my door against it. Outside the window, a large branch from the oak tree comes right up to the roof. It’s the same tree Noah used to climb onto the patio roof the other night. I freeze. If Noah could climb the tree to reach the second-floor windows, someone else could.

Panic makes my fingers tremble as I push at the stubborn old window lock and pull the shades down to ward off any evil. To prevent anyone from seeing inside. Toeing off my shoes, I climb under the covers and throw them over my head, tucking the quilt around me like a cocoon. When I was a child, I believed that if I was completely hidden from view, I was safe. The monsters that materialized in the darkness couldn’t get me. If only that were true.

My fingers run along my cheek as the tears start to come.

I’m not safe, even here.

It’s happening again. Just like last time.

No, not like last time. This time is different: my parents aren’t here to assuage my fears when I tell them I think I’m being followed. They aren’t able to distract me when I tell them I’ve seen the same older, bearded man every time I’ve left the house. This time there is no one to tell me it’s all in my imagination, even though it wasn’t.

This time, I know there’s someone following me. Watching me. Biding his time.

The question is, how much more will he take?

I have so

little

left

to

give.

Day 1

It’s all in my head.

The rusted brown car with the rock-and-roll sticker in the back window had been parked in the street outside the school for the past few days. But it didn’t mean