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

the front porch until I almost knock it over. Gasping in surprise, I scoop it up before the vase can crash on its side. Water dribbles down my fingers as I take in the bouquet. The flowers are beautiful.

What if he sent them?

I almost drop them in revulsion.

“I’ll wait until you’re inside.” Mr. Baugh is standing in the middle of the dead, yellowed grass, watching me warily.

“Someone sent you flowers?” Esau calls, standing against the door of his truck.

I shake my head. No one would send me flowers. They’re probably for Aunt Karen. Maybe now that I know about Justin, he won’t have to be so secretive about dating my guardian.

There’s a white card tucked into the bouquet. I fish it out and open it with one hand, desperately hoping to see Justin’s name. Instead, there’s a note scrawled hastily in cursive.

Audrey,

I hope you know it’s all for you.

Yours,

I stand frozen, the edges of the card cutting into my palm as I clench it between my fingers.

Esau’s boots clomp on the wood as he mounts the stairs.

I should move, run inside before he gets a look at the card. My legs don’t bend under my control. Any magic I had is used up and gone.

“Looks like they delivered it to the wrong house,” Esau says over my shoulder. “Do you know an Audrey?”

“No,” I lie.

Chapter 31

Day 152, Friday

School on Wednesday was torture.

I couldn’t focus on anything but the killer’s calculated trip to the store. The flowers. They were bright red flares fired into the sky. Warnings that the game wasn’t over.

The entire town seemed to be suspended in a state of wary trepidation. Would the killer strike anyone they knew? Maybe someone who had lived in the sleepy valley their entire life? Several of the students who had stay-at-home parents walked around with their phones clutched in their hands as if waiting for them to ring with the dreaded news.

I wanted to scream, but the knowledge that all of this was my fault kept me quiet. I floated through the halls like a ghost.

Thursday was only marginally better. It seemed that because the Mayday Killer had been spotted in town, every teacher had given up on their lesson plans and spent the day tuned in to various news channels. The students bobbed from class to class, catching the new repetitive reports. No more sightings of the fugitive since Tuesday. The newscaster on the late night news said that the authorities didn’t know where the killer was hiding or if he was merely passing through town and would continue the trek north he’d begun in September.

Talk show anchors in sharp suits and bright red dresses speculated as to his motives. How he chose his victims. Why he used a knife rather than a gun.

I spent the entire day trying to drown out their voices with the music streaming through my earbuds. I kept thinking one of the teachers would confiscate them, but if they noticed they didn’t care.

I already knew the truth.

None of the town’s people were in any real danger. Not if the killer sticks to his established modus operandi.

The town’s people weren’t the reason the deranged killer had made his way up the state with such single-minded focus, only taking breaks to slake the blood-thirst that drove him.

No, I was the reason.

It was me.

Vehicles from the sheriff’s department passed the school at a near constant rate. Or at least they seemed to whenever I looked out one of the windows. I longed to be out there with them doing something. But my guardian had assured me that the best thing I could do was to stay inside. Stay safe. My time to step up would come, God willing.

Aunt Karen picked me up from school without a word. Her mouth flattened in a grim line. You’re safest at school, she’d said when I balked at going. You’ll be surrounded by people, all of them on alert. Try not to worry. Like that was possible.

Today, the town-wide frenzy seems to have broken. The teachers are back to their various subjects. My friends have begun to relax, drawing their shoulders down from their ears.

The killer hasn’t been spotted again. He hasn’t spilled even a drop of blood. And I have it on good authority that the police are on high alert in case he tries.

“He must have moved on,” Fiona says at lunch. “There’s nothing interesting about this town.”

“I hope so,” Viv says, looking up from the notebook where her doodles expand over the page like black and white galaxies. She’s been texting back and forth with her mom constantly for the past three days. She said it was because her mom worried, but I could see the line between her brows every time she checked for new messages.

“It blows my mind that there was an actual killer in our town. I go to that grocery store all the time,” Marisa says, adjusting the scarf looped around her neck. “I wonder what made him go in there anyway. He’s been hiding out for months. Why go someplace so public now?”

My mouth drops open.

She’s right. The man has proven he’s more than good at staying out of the public eye. Evading the police for days and weeks and months. Why did he allow himself to be seen on Tuesday? They played the surveillance footage on the news. The Mayday Killer had the gall to stroll up and down the aisles, even glancing at the cameras mounted on the ceiling more than once. It was as if he was daring them to identify him, since they hadn’t been able to yet.

Not even when they showed me the surveillance footage from the supermarket and I confirmed it was him

Ice cuts through me like a sharp winter wind. He did it on purpose.

He wanted to be seen.

He wanted me to know he’s here.

The time is right. He’s coming for me.

Cold weather has blown in with conviction, thrashing the trees until their leaves concede the battle and