Part 1 of 5
Buster’s jaws clamped onto Lily’s tiny pink sneaker, and the sound of his snarl ripped through the quiet Sunday afternoon.
It was a sound I had never heard from him before.
Deep.
Desperate.
Almost wild.
“Mommy!” Lily screamed.
My four-year-old daughter hit the grass as Buster yanked her backward by the shoelaces.
The tray I was carrying slipped from my hands and crashed onto the driveway.
I barely noticed.
All I could see was my daughter on the ground and the little rescue dog I trusted pulling at her shoe with everything he had.
“Buster! No!”
I ran across the lawn.
We were in the middle of the annual neighborhood block party in Oak Creek.
It was supposed to be an easy afternoon.
Food.
Music.
Children playing.
A chance for Lily and me to finally feel like we belonged.
After my divorce, I had moved into a small rental nearby hoping for a fresh start.
I wanted a quiet neighborhood.
A good school.
A place where Lily could feel safe.
Now dozens of neighbors were watching what looked like my dog attacking her.
“I told you that dog was dangerous!” Marge Peterson shouted from near the grill.
Marge was the president of the homeowners association and had never hidden her dislike of Buster.
She had already called him a liability more than once.
Tom, the retired mechanic who lived next door, rushed toward us carrying a pair of heavy barbecue tongs.
“Move!” he shouted. “I’ll get him off her!”
I reached Lily first.
I grabbed Buster by the scruff.
“Drop it! Buster, let go!”
He refused.
His paws dug into the grass.
His entire body strained backward.
But something felt wrong.
He wasn’t biting Lily’s ankle.
He was gripping only the thick shoelace of her sneaker.
“Mommy, make him stop!” Lily cried.
Panic took over.
I pulled harder.
Buster growled.
For one terrifying second, I thought the dog I had trusted around my daughter had suddenly become dangerous.
Six months earlier, I had adopted him from a shelter.
He had been the quiet little terrier sitting alone in the corner.
From the first day he came home, he adored Lily.
He followed her from room to room.
He slept beside her bed.
He let her put toy crowns on his head and wrap blankets around him.
He had never once shown aggression toward her.
Until now.
Tom stepped closer.
“Sarah, move!”
I saw him raise the metal tongs.
“Don’t hit him!” I shouted.
Without thinking, I struck Buster lightly across the snout.
He yelped in surprise.
His mouth opened.
I immediately pulled Lily into my arms and pushed Buster away.
He stumbled backward.
But instead of running, he stood several feet away, trembling.
His eyes weren’t fixed on Lily.
They were fixed on the flowerbed behind her.
“It’s okay,” I whispered, holding Lily against my chest. “Mommy’s here.”
I checked her leg.
No blood.
No bite.
Her jeans weren’t even torn.
I looked at her sneaker.
Buster had grabbed only the shoelace.
“He didn’t bite her,” Tom said quietly.
Marge crossed her arms.
“That doesn’t change anything. That animal is unstable.”
I barely heard her.
Something else had caught my attention.
The damaged shoelace stretched toward the mulch at the edge of Marge’s hydrangeas.
The plastic tip had disappeared beneath the woodchips.
“Hold still, sweetheart,” I told Lily.
I reached down and tugged gently.
The lace wouldn’t move.
It was caught on something.
I assumed it was a root.
I brushed aside some mulch.
My fingertips touched cold metal.
I froze.
I moved another handful of woodchips away.
Then another.
And what appeared beneath them made my stomach turn.
Buried directly beneath the place where Lily had been about to put her foot was a heavy steel trapping device.
A thick cable ran from it deep into the bushes.
The mechanism had snapped shut.
And trapped between its metal jaws was the shredded end of Lily’s pink shoelace.
I stared at it, unable to breathe.
If Buster had not pulled her backward, her foot would have landed directly on it.
Suddenly everything made sense.
The growling.
The frantic pulling.
The way he refused to let go.
Buster had not been attacking Lily.
He had seen something none of us had noticed.
And he had dragged her away from it.
I slowly followed the thick cable with my eyes.
It disappeared beneath the bushes and was secured around one of the thick stems.
This had not simply been left on the lawn.
Someone had hidden it there.
Someone had covered it with mulch.
Someone had placed it exactly where a person—or an animal—could step on it without seeing it.
The laughter and music around us seemed to vanish.
I looked across the lawn at the neighbors.
Marge had gone completely silent.
Tom was staring at the device with an expression I couldn’t read.
Buster sat several feet away, panting, still watching the flowerbed.
I looked at my daughter.
Then at my dog.
Then back at the hidden steel trap.
And for the first time, I realized the most frightening part wasn’t what Buster had done.
It was that someone in our neighborhood had deliberately put that trap there.