Part 2 of 5
“Call 911!” I screamed.
The words tore out of me before I even realized I was shouting.
I stayed on my knees beside the flowerbed, one arm wrapped tightly around Lily while my other hand hovered over the hidden steel trap.
“Nobody step on the grass!”
The entire block party erupted into confusion.
Parents grabbed their children.
Tom dropped the heavy barbecue tongs he had been holding.
They hit the pavement with a loud metallic clang.
“What did you find?” he asked.
“Stay back,” I warned.
Marge Peterson pushed through the small crowd gathering around us.
“Sarah, this is getting ridiculous,” she said. “Let me see what your dog dug up.”
She started toward the flowerbed.
“Marge, stop!”
She froze.
I pointed toward the exposed metal.
“There’s a trap buried under your mulch.”
For once, Marge had nothing to say.
Tom carefully moved closer.
When he saw the device, the color disappeared from his face.
“That’s not landscaping equipment,” he said quietly.
“What is it?” one of the neighbors asked.
Tom stared at the steel cable.
“Some kind of heavy snare.”
The mood changed instantly.
Several parents pulled their children completely off the lawn.
Marge stared at the device.
“That’s impossible,” she whispered. “The landscaping crew was here this week.”
I followed the thick cable with my eyes.
It disappeared beneath the hydrangeas and was secured around one of the larger stems.
“It didn’t fall here,” I said.
“Someone attached it.”
Within minutes, police cars arrived.
The cheerful neighborhood party became something completely different.
Yellow tape went up around the flowerbed.
Music was shut off.
The children were moved away from the area.
An ambulance crew examined Lily as a precaution.
I sat beside her while an EMT carefully checked her ankle.
“She’s okay,” the EMT finally said. “Not even a scratch.”
I closed my eyes.
Relief washed through me so intensely that I almost cried again.
Buster sat beside my feet on his leash.
I reached down and touched the top of his head.
Only minutes earlier, I had believed he was hurting my daughter.
Now I understood.
He had seen the danger before any of us did.
“Ms. Hayes?”
I looked up.
A police officer stood several feet away.
His badge read Miller.
He glanced toward Buster.
“Is this the dog?”
I nodded.
Officer Miller crouched slightly and looked at him.
“Seems like he earned himself a good dinner tonight.”
I felt my throat tighten.
“He saved her.”
Miller nodded.
Then his expression became serious.
“I need you to walk me through exactly what happened.”
I told him everything.
How Buster had suddenly grabbed Lily’s shoelace.
How he had dragged her backward.
How the lace had become caught beneath the mulch.
And how I had uncovered the steel mechanism.
Officer Miller wrote everything down.
“Did you see anyone near the flowerbed before this happened?”
“No.”
“Any unfamiliar vehicles?”
“Not that I noticed.”
He looked toward the officers examining the device.
One of them was photographing it while another carefully cleared away the remaining mulch.
“Our initial concern,” Miller said, “is that this was concealed deliberately.”
I looked at him.
“Could someone have been trying to hurt a child?”
He chose his words carefully.
“We don’t know who or what the intended target was.”
He glanced toward Buster.
“It could have been placed for an animal. It could have been reckless behavior by someone who never considered who might step there. We need evidence before we know more.”
That didn’t make me feel any better.
“But someone hid it.”
“That appears possible.”
He closed his notebook.
“We’re going to check nearby doorbell cameras and speak with residents. We’ll also search around your property in case anything similar has been placed there.”
My stomach tightened.
“Around my house?”
“Just a precaution.”
I looked down at Lily.
Suddenly the quiet neighborhood I had chosen because it felt safe seemed completely different.
Later that evening, I carried Lily home.
Buster stayed so close to us that his shoulder repeatedly brushed against my leg.
I locked the front door.
Then the back door.
Then I checked both again.
I closed every blind in the house.
Lily seemed to recover faster than I did.
After a warm bath, she sat in her pajamas playing with her toys as though the afternoon had simply been another strange adventure.
Eventually, she fell asleep.
I sat alone on the sofa with Buster curled beside me.
For the first time all day, there was silence.
I buried my fingers in his coarse fur.
“I’m sorry, buddy,” I whispered.
He rested his head against my leg.
My phone suddenly buzzed.
Greg.
My ex-husband.
I almost ignored it.
But it was Sunday, the night he was supposed to call Lily.
I answered.
“Hello?”
“Hey,” Greg said casually. “Is Lily still awake?”
“No. She’s asleep.”
“Everything okay?”
I should have said yes.
Instead, everything spilled out.
The dog.
The trap.
The police.
For one foolish second, I expected him to sound worried.
Instead, there was a pause.
Then he sighed.
“Sarah, this is exactly what I mean when I say you take on too much.”
I stared at the wall.
“What?”
“You moved into that rental. You adopted a shelter dog. Now Lily is around dangerous situations.”
“Buster saved her.”
“According to you.”
My grip tightened around the phone.
Then Greg said the one thing that made my blood run cold.
“Maybe we should reconsider whether Lily should stay with you full-time.”
I stood up.
“Do not use what happened today against me.”
“I’m thinking about our daughter.”
“Then start acting like her father.”
I ended the call.
For several seconds I simply stood there, shaking.
Then Buster suddenly lifted his head.
His entire body became rigid.
A low growl vibrated through his chest.
It was the same warning sound he had made at the block party.
“Buster?”
He stared toward the front window.
Then he barked once.
Sharp.
Urgent.
I moved slowly toward the blinds.
The lights in the room were off except for a small lamp beside the sofa.
I pressed myself against the wall and pulled the blind open barely an inch.
At first, I saw nothing.
Just the dark side yard between my duplex and the neighboring house.
Then something moved.
A person.
Standing just beyond my fence.
I leaned closer.
My stomach dropped.
It was Tom.
The same neighbor who had recognized the trap immediately.
The same man who had been ready to strike Buster only hours earlier.
He stood completely still in the darkness.
And in his hands was a long-handled shovel.
He wasn’t gardening.
He wasn’t walking away.
He was facing my house.
Watching.
I let the blind fall.
Buster growled again.
I backed away from the window and checked the lock on the front door.
Then the back.
My heart hammered as one terrible thought formed in my mind.
Tom had known exactly what that trap was.
He knew how it worked.
And now, hours after police removed it, he was outside my house in the darkness carrying a shovel.
For the first time, I wondered whether the person who had planted the trap had been standing beside me all afternoon.