Don't Look In (Gus Young Thrillers Book 1) Read online

  Don’t Look In

  A Gus Young Thriller

  Tom Saric

  DON’T LOOK IN

  Copyright © 2020 by Tom Saric.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Severn River Publishing

  www.SevernRiverPublishing.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  ISBN: 978-1-64875-017-5 (Paperback)

  ISBN: 978-1-64875-027-4 (Hardback)

  Contents

  Also By Tom Saric

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Leave Your Review

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  Next in Series

  Read BELIEVE IN ME

  You Might Also Enjoy…

  Thanks for Reading

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also By Tom Saric

  Gus Young Thrillers

  Don’t Look In

  Believe In Me

  Standalone Novels

  Indicted

  Compromised

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  To all the shrinks who commit themselves to truly listening.

  Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people.

  —C.G. Jung

  Prologue

  It was an unusual time of day for a killing. Murders were nighttime events, preferably in the rain, ideally during a thunderstorm. Not at noontime in the dead of summer, with the sun viciously beating down. Noon was for a quiet lunch in an air-conditioned kitchen, with a bowl of tomato soup and a slice of sourdough.

  He sat in his car on the shoulder of the sunbaked two-lane road, holding the pistol in his lap. He ran his hand along the gun, savoring every groove and jagged bump.

  Across the road, up a winding gravel driveway, the house stood atop the hill. Its fresh coat of paint reflected the sun, and a metal star hung above the porch door.

  He opened the car, pushed the gun between his back and belt, and then put on a faded jean jacket. He looked both ways. No cars had passed in over ten minutes. The only sounds were crickets chirping in the ditch.

  Six years of searching led him to this place. He'd searched, hoped, lost hope, and regained it over and over again. Stuck in that endless loop. He always suspected the man in the house knew. And he couldn't wait any longer. The man would tell him everything. EVERYTHING.

  And once he got the truth, he would pull the trigger.

  1

  There's a place, deep in the woods, where the land slopes down to where the Persey River meets the Redway. The currents swirling at this juncture create a fisherman's paradise. Bugs bound over the cola-colored water. Brook trout wait below the surface, ready to pounce. I built a shack there from reclaimed lumber and would sit inside and listen. The steady hum of the flies, the water lapping, and the fish splashing would envelope me like a symphony. Week after week I'd traipse through the forest to this sanctuary.

  On this day, I couldn't find it.

  I slid across the ground, my ass bumping over tree roots, sending lances of pain down my legs. I leaned against a birch trunk, shifting until I found a position that didn't make my leg feel like it was on fire.

  I tried my phone again, holding it up high like an offering to the gods, but still no service.

  I looked at the horizon. Faint yellow lines clung to the bare trees on the hill. The sun had almost disappeared. The texture of the sky was changing, wisps of cloud coalescing into a jagged expanse. It was hurricane season. Tropical storms sent weather systems barreling up the Eastern seaboard, creating wet, windy autumn days and increasing the temperature above sixty.

  I'd been through these woods a hundred times. I knew that every morning a family of deer drank water from the lake at that beach with the cube-shaped boulder. That the bald eagles fought over their spot on the top branch of a fir tree that broke in the storm last year. That the snapping turtles hibernated in the reeds by the tributary.

  But three hours into my pheasant hunt it all became unfamiliar, as though I were transplanted across the world. Worse, transplanted to another planet. I might as well have been on Mars.

  I circled back, retracing steps and searching for landmarks, but every turn was unfamiliar.

  I lifted the phone, got to a hill. Too far. There was no cell tower for miles.

  I scrambled down the hill, and my foot slipped on a loose rock. My hip smashed into a stump and I tumbled twenty feet, clawing and grabbing on my way down until I clattered into a fallen tree. My back seized. I crawled over the slick forest floor toward my gun, each movement sending a vibrating burn down my legs.

  I commanded Anna, my dog, to go home, get help, before it got dark. I checked my watch. She’d been gone four hours. She must have made it by now.

  It’s been sneaking up on me for the past few months. I never know when it’s going to happen. Maybe I should get it checked out. Fatigue has something to do with it.

  The sun never seems to move as fast as when it’s descending over the horizon. Blackness covered the woods, and there was no moon to give even a bit of light.

  A pop. It echoed in the dark. Sounds were amplified. Maybe nothing but a vole crawling over a twig, but it startled me like a gunshot.

  I pulled my rifle close and held it across my lap. I tried to take a deep breath, but my chest felt stiff. Fear is nothing more than chemicals in the brain. Fear lives only in my head.

  But my brain doesn't seem to be working like it used to.

  I shouldn't have sent Anna out. I didn't even know which direction to point her in. Where did she end up? How could I expect her to find her way out?

  The ground was cool. A wind picked up from the north and the gusts seemed to find gaps underneath my jacket. I flipped up my hood and let the wind howl around me. It was October, and luckily for me, tonight’s temperature didn't drop below the sixties. Still, I was shivering, my arms rigid as I held my knees. Always be prepared. I guess I forgot that too.

  They say most of man's problems are due to his inability to sit with his thoughts. That's all I've got now. My thoughts. And my gun.

  There was a rustle to my left and then a branch snapped. A bird cawed somewhere in the distance. I loaded the rifle and held my breath.

  I enjoy my own company. Funny thing, considering I preach connection as the antidote to society's problems. I'm a man of contradictions, I guess. Who isn't?

  Gus Young. He lived alone and died alone. Maybe that's what they'd put on my tombstone
. Died in the woods he'd been in a thousand times. Had a gun with him. Sent his dog away. Suicide, the police would think.

  I didn't intend it to be like this. My move out here three years ago was my chance to regain some sort of peace. That's what I had told myself. Really, it was an attempt to run away. From the shame. The glares, the gossip. My coping rope was fraying, so really, I had nothing left to do but run. Running away from shame is impossible, though, because it lives inside you, like a cancer that chews away until there's nothing left. They say you can't run from your problems. That didn't stop me from trying.

  Jung said loneliness didn't come from not having people around you, but from being unable to communicate the things that you find are important.

  I guess Carl was never stuck alone in the woods.

  A crack. A rustle. Feet stomping. I looked into the darkness around me but my eyes still hadn't adjusted. A bark. Anna's bark.

  "I—" My voice cracked. I swallowed hard. "I'm over here."

  Footsteps approached, cresting the hill ahead. A swinging lantern.

  "Here. Right here."

  A dark figure ambled down the hill smoothly, as though they saw every tree root along the way.

  As the figure got closer, Anna sprinted to me, paws pressed against my shoulders, tongue licking my face. I let all fifty pounds of her onto my lap. I'd rescued Anna from a shelter in Bangor. She was a Pointer Springer Spaniel mix, which made her a great hunting dog.

  Before I saw him I could smell him. Cigarettes and whiskey. He lifted the lantern. Thick glasses, tobacco-browned teeth, trapper hat. My neighbor, Herman O'Brien.

  He spit. "Woods didn't swallow you up yet?"

  "Still here. It seems I don't die easily."

  "I know the feeling."

  Herman was eighty-seven years old, thirty years my senior, but in better shape than me. He lived in these woods almost as long as I'd been alive. He passed me a flask and a plastic bottle of water. I put the latter to my lips.

  "Take that first." He pointed at the flask. "It'll numb whatever ache you got. And it soaks in better when you're on empty."

  It smelled like gasoline. "Home brew?"

  He nodded.

  I took a sip. I swear it burned a hole in my throat.

  "You're gonna need more than that."

  "What is this, ninety proof?"

  "Don't know."

  Herman watched as I emptied the flask. The burning made me forget all about the pain in my back. I guess that was the point.

  "I thought maybe you were already into it and that's how you got yourself lost out here. But you're stone-cold sober."

  Not anymore. I chugged the water bottle. I was thirsty, and had to get rid of the aftertaste.

  "I got turned around. Then, with the trees bare, I seemed to lose my landmarks."

  Herman's eyes narrowed behind his lenses.

  "You're a straight line from your place." He pointed.

  "It was getting dark."

  "Doctor told me that if I start getting lost driving, he's gonna take my driver's away."

  "Not the same thing."

  "I told him like hell you will."

  I glared at Herman. I didn't like his line of questioning. It was a simple mistake, getting lost, could happen to anyone. Herman held out his hand. I stood slowly, and his meaty hand wrapped around my forearm.

  "Your back?"

  "Yeah. I slipped down a hill. Old injury."

  Herman reached in his breast pocket and pulled out a hand-rolled cigarette.

  I shook my head. "Don't smoke anymore."

  He laughed. "It’s for pain. Doctor gave it to me for that. Says it’s natural."

  I took the joint and inhaled.

  "Now let's get you home.”

  Rain was beating down on us by the time we reached my cabin. Day was breaking. The sun rising behind the thick clouds turned them green like an expanding algae bloom. Rain pelted the lake surface as waves crashed against the rocks.

  "Have a good one," Herman said, and walked up my drive to the dirt road leading to his cabin.

  "Do you want a ride?" Herman was my closest neighbor, but we were still separated by eighty acres of forest.

  He shook his head. "Doc says I need the exercise."

  Herman disappeared into the dark and I dug a key out of my pocket. I was still a bit high and drunk from Herman's moonshine, and the key slipped out of my hand and dropped into a puddle. I had just about lost feeling in my fingertips from the cold, and I couldn't feel the key in the cloudy water. So I ran my entire hand through the puddle until I scooped it up. I stuck it in the lock and tried to turn the deadbolt but it was already unlocked. Bridgetown was the sort of place where no one locked their doors. But big city habits die hard, and I had never forgotten to lock a door.

  That said, I'd also never gotten lost in the woods.

  I turned the slick handle and pressed the door open. Anna burst inside and I soon heard her lapping water from the toilet. I flicked on the light, stepped inside, and scanned the room, part of me fearing I'd see someone. I didn't move for a good thirty seconds. When I was satisfied I was alone, I leaned the Remington next to the door and took off my boots and jacket, then walked past the kitchen into the den.

  Even though Meg had taken me to the cleaners in the divorce, she left me with enough of a nest egg to start my new life as a hermit. I found pictures of the original cabin on the shores of the secluded inlet on Origa Lake. It was dilapidated, and I could hear raccoons scurrying underneath the deck when the agent first showed me the place. But the cabin was secluded, had an old boat launch, and at sunset the view across the lake was spectacular. So for those reasons I decided it would be mine. That, and I couldn't afford anything better.

  I took possession in one of the rainiest springs I had ever experienced on the East Coast. The roof also leaked, which meant I not only had to replace that, but the pine shiplap on the right side of the house had rotted and had to be ripped out.

  But I got it the way I wanted. Metal roof, pine interior, and floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the lake. I even had a basement where I kept my gun collection. On the west side of the place I added a den and lined the walls with shelves I milled from local birch. I piled my books and vinyl records on top—all I took with me when I sold our place. I kept my original editions of Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams, Jung's Modern Man in Search of a Soul, and Anna Freud's Defense Mechanisms, which my mother gave me. These leather-bound books sat on the shelves alongside records of country greats Kenny Rogers, Loretta Lynn, and The Highwaymen.

  I popped in a wood stove, which made the cabin seem complete. No TV, radio, or newspaper. No neighbors. Just man and nature, the way God intended.

  In the den, I wrapped myself in a crochet blanket, then opened the wood stove and stacked it full of split wood and kindling. I got the fire going before returning to the kitchen and putting a kettle on the wood stove. A bit of hot tea would help me sober up and relax, and hopefully ward off the chill that ran through me.

  Then I opened a drawer, found my bottle of pain medication, and dumped the last two into my palm. Time to stop by the pharmacy for a refill.

  I grabbed my rifle and went to the basement. I'd collected rifles over the past few years, keeping them downstairs in my lockable gun cabinet. However, I'd been keeping it unlocked because last month I'd forgotten the combination. I’d had to destroy the lock and buy a brand-new one.

  My cell rang. I searched for it in my jacket. Few people knew my number, and those who did knew to call only if it was important. Sheila Gustafson was one of those people. The head of customer service at Buck's Hardware. And also my secretary.

  "Gus," she said. "Where on earth have you been? I've been trying you since yesterday afternoon."

  My phone started buzzing, alerting me to new voicemails that must have been picked up now that I was back in service territory.

  "Long story, Sheila." I held the phone between my cheek and shoulder while shoving a few more logs int
o the wood stove and closing the door.

  "Are you okay?"

  "I'm fine. Always fine."

  Sheila worked at Buck's for twenty years and pretty much ran the place. If anyone in Bridgetown needed a snow blower chain in June or a dock lift in December, Sheila was their first call. And she would get it done. People in town got so used to her solving their problems that they began calling her for advice. They asked for help with anything from toilet training their little ones to figuring out if their husband was running around on them. They treated her like an on-call Dear Abby.

  I moved out to rural Maine with the intention of keeping to myself. But I needed supplies for my cabin, so I ended up going to Buck's almost daily. When Sheila learned what I did in my past life, she set me up with the people who needed more help than she could provide. She found me an office. She managed my calls. The woman could handle most anything, so three messages was unusual.

  "It's Wanda," Sheila said. "She's been calling. I've tried to talk her down, but she's begging for a session."

  I looked at the clock. "I could possibly make it in for eleven. What's the problem?"

  "She was just rambling on the phone, she…" Sheila stopped. "Gus, really. She's a handful. And she doesn't even-"

  "What did she ramble about?"