Don't Look Behind You (Don't Look Series Book 1) by Emily Kazmierski (ereader iphone txt) 📕

over behind the teacher’s desk and stands with a small wastebasket in hand. His round face and scraggly beard make my heart stop.

“N-no,” I stammer. “You can’t be—” Blinking rapidly, I will my eyes to see someone different. He can’t be here. He can’t be. A wicked cackle cuts through the air, making me stumble back against the door. My eyes clamp shut and my hands cover my ears.

It’s not real. He’s not here on campus.

My heart is pulverizing my ribcage, making it hard to breathe.

“Help you with something?” the janitor asks.

When I peel my eyes open, an older Latino man with tan skin and no beard is watching me, holding the newly emptied garbage can in one hand.

Shaking my head, I run headlong into Marisa.

“Whoa. Are you okay?” she asks, her hands steadying me. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“More like a demon.” I wish I could take the words back as soon as they’re out.

Marisa’s eyebrows rise as she looks over my shoulder. “Janitor Abe? He’s been here for ages. Let’s get back inside before Esau really does sic someone on us. Fiona, probably. And she’s scary when she gets serious.”

“No kidding.” I look back over my shoulder once, but the janitor has moved off down the hallway. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a car in the parking lot. The blue one. The fluffy dice are visible even from here. I’m so tired of running away.

“Hang on a sec.” I’m marching toward the parking lot before Marisa can get a word in edgewise.

It’s time to do something. Even check out a car whose owner I’m pretty sure is tied to a serial killer.

The parking lot is practically empty aside from the theater kids’ cars. There’s no one around. The blue car is unoccupied. With a frustrated yank, I check each of the doors. The driver door is unlocked.

“What are you doing?” Marisa asks, standing a few feet away, arms snug across her stomach.

“Let me know if anyone comes, okay?”

“Okay…” Marisa glances uneasily over her shoulder.

The stench of sweat and greasy fast food mingling assaults my nose as I slide into the car. Grimacing, I look in the door compartment and the center console. There’s not much there but a few stray coins and a gas receipt. The floor on the passenger side is equally unhelpful. I hesitate when I get to the glove compartment. It’s silly. Nothing’s going to jump out at me.

I lick my lips. I make the magic happen. And it’s about time for some.

Pushing the latch, I open the compartment.

It’s completely, totally, frustratingly empty. No car registration or insurance papers to tell me who owns this heap.

Wait.

A corner of paper sticks out from under the floor mat below the glove box. Leaning down, I retrieve it. My heart thumps when I recognize what I’m looking at. A photo. A tree with leaves dappled by sunlight. A figure haloed by the sun leaning into the frame.

How did he get this?

Chapter 25

Day 140, Sunday

Noah groans in frustration. “There has to be something here that we’re missing.” He shuffles through the stack of papers he’s printed about the Mayday Killer, reading bits here and there. One slides off the edge of the table and floats to the grubby library carpet. Using the toe of my shoe, I slide it toward myself and pick it up.

At the information desk, the librarian glances our way. She seems really nice, but I’m guessing that, in the tradition of all librarians, she’ll shush Noah if he gets any louder.

“Did you find any connection between the victims?” he asks, looking at me over the frames of his glasses, which have fallen down his nose.

A single, solitary name printed on a piece of paper.

My lips purse. I’ve been prohibited from telling anyone that I already know what links each of the Mayday Killer’s victims, even though the police haven’t released that information. It was one of the conditions Aunt Karen had for letting me move in with her. I can’t tell Noah about the survivor whose name I removed from the list he found on one of the true crime forums. I don’t have the heart to tell him about my sneaking suspicion that there’s nothing we can do that the police haven’t thought of already. And they haven’t caught the killer yet, despite the clear and bloody path he’s cut through the state. If the professionals are having trouble nailing him down, how will two teenagers manage it?

My stomach rolls as I go over the talk Aunt Karen had with me this morning. When I came downstairs for breakfast, she was sitting at the dining table with her hands wrapped around her coffee thermos and her handgun resting on the table. “From here on out, you’re not to go anywhere without telling me exactly where you’ll be. No sneaking out under any circumstances. Understand?”

My blood had run cold at the severity of her tone. “Did something happen?”

“I’d tell you not to check the news, but isn’t telling a teenager not to do something the equivalent of daring them to do it?”

“Not always,” I murmured as I navigated to the news app on my phone. Dreading what I would find. There it was. The morning’s top headline: Mayday Killer Strikes Again; Two More Dead.

My stomach had clenched as I read the article. It was short, without much information. A line at the bottom promised updates as soon as the police released more information. My eyes had lingered on the name of the city where the crime had occurred. It looked familiar somehow. Like I’d been there before.

I popped out of my chair, hoping the movement would stir a buried memory.

“The Mirror Museum. Have you ever been there?” My guardian had asked before bringing her coffee mug to her lips.

The memory had hit me so hard my knees had buckled, and I’d had to clutch at the table’s edge to keep from stumbling. My parents had taken me to the