Page 2 of Heart of a Devil

Mamá and Papá are both home. It would only take me two minutes to run back to the house and get them. Mamá is making dinner, and Papá is doing work in his office. But I don’t want to bother them. I’m probably being silly. Bailey probably chased a bird and got a little lost. I’ll find him any second now.

I don’t want to go back down to the gardening shed. I hate it there. Even seeing it makes me taste blood and fills my ears with the sounds of that man screaming.

It’s the only place I haven’t checked, though, so I don’t have a choice. “Come on, Lauren, stop being a baby,” I mutter to myself, standing in front of the door. I’m really scared. The man isn’t there anymore. Emile has been using the shed like normal and everything has been cleaned up, but I still think it smells weird. Probably my imagination.

Still, I am thinking about running back to the house and asking my parents for help when I hear him—a little woof, a little whine. “Bailey.”

As soon as he hears my voice, he goes crazy, and I pull the door open. He runs out to greet me, jumping up and down and whirling around in circles and leaping so high he can lick my nose. I end up rolling around on the grass too, giggling, so happy to see him. “How did you get in there, silly boy?” He answers me with a big sloppy kiss that makes me laugh, but I’m still confused.

The door has to be pushed or pulled shut, and I frown as I realize Bailey wouldn’t have been able to do that. He might have been hiding, and someone accidentally closed him in there…

Except Bailey is a big dog, and he’s loud. He loves people, and he never hides from them.

I’m still trying to figure it out when I see my uncle walking across the grass. He wasn’t here earlier. Has he been lurking around our house without us knowing? Does Papá know what amonster his brother is? He can’t know, can he? If he knew, he’d stop him.

His big, scary shadow blocks the light, and I grab Bailey tight. Having my dog close makes me brave. “Did you trap Bailey in there, Uncle Carlos? Are you angry with me? I didn’t say a word to anyone.”

“Silly girl, what do you mean? Why would I do that? It would be dangerous for him in there, wouldn’t it? Rat poison, blades, chemicals, all kinds of things that could hurt a dog. If someone left any of those lying around, if someone opened those poison boxes and left them for this greedy boy to poke his fat nose into, then who knows what would have happened? But it looks like he had a lucky escape. This time.”

He winks at me and reaches out to pat Bailey. Bailey growls a little, but he’s too sweet to do anything more. Still, I quickly pull him back and whisper soothing words. He’s never bitten anyone, ever. He’s a good boy. But if he did bite Uncle Carlos, he’d make sure everyone knew, and Bailey would have to go to the vet and not come home like my friend Sasha’s dog last year.

“He seems fine to me, conejita. But if he had come to some harm, if I had trapped him in there and mixed rat poison with that chow he likes, then maybe it would have been to remind you to keep those pretty lips of yours shut. To make sure that we understand each other. Now, come on up to the house. You’re late for dinner—but you’re so spoiled, you girls, nobody will mind. If your pup did die, they’d probably just get you a new one.”

No! I will look after Bailey, and I will keep him safe. And after that I willneverhave another dog. I will never give anyone the chance to hurt me like this again.

I follow Uncle Carlos into the house and run straight upstairs, shouting to my papá that I need to wash up and I’ll be down soon.

When I walk into my bedroom, I freeze. Every one of my stuffies, some of which I’ve had since I was a baby, are destroyed. Ripped and torn, scattered around my room like Bailey used to do with the trash when he was a baby. Tears fill my eyes, and I get really cold when I look at my bed. One of my biggest toys was a stuffed dog that looked just like Bailey—a soft yellow Lab that I hugged every night before I got the real thing. His belly has been sliced open, and all of his stuffing is pulled out. I swallow my sobs because I know who did this. And I know what he is trying to tell me.

If I don’t do as I’m told, this will happen to the real Bailey.

I clean up the mess, tears running down my cheeks. My mom lied. I’m not safe here. Nobody is safe here.

Chapter

One

LAUREN

TWENTY-THREE YEARS LATER

I’ve lived in London for almost a month now, and it’s one hell of a city. Nowhere near as big or as sprawling as my native Los Angeles, of course, and the weather really can suck—but I still love it here.

I love the noise and the bustle, the history, the beautiful architecture, the way the gorgeous bridges span the River Thames as it makes its moody way through the landscape. I love the pubs and the black cabs and the accents. It’s like being in a movie, which I guess is how other people feel when they walk down Rodeo Drive back home.

Sometimes I still can’t believe I agreed to uproot my whole existence and fly thousands of miles to start all over again. I know my parents can’t—they’ve made their feelings on the matter quite clear. They wanted me to stay close to home, like my sister Liza. They can’t understand my wanderlust or why I left Los Angeles as a teenager and never went back for longer than a few weeks. After all these years, I still haven’t said a word.

I look on as my old pal Samantha Donovan bustles around, passing out drinks and chatting with guests at herhousewarming party. It’s a gorgeous house to be warmed, in the lovely countryside outside London but close enough to easily commute.

She spots me standing alone and lifts an eyebrow.You okay?she mouths. I appreciate the check-in, but I’m fine, and I nod to reassure her. Samantha is the reason I’m in London in the first place, and it’s been great to reconnect. We met when I was studying law in the UK, and I jumped at the chance when she contacted me to see if I’d be interested in joining her successful family law firm as a managing partner.

Nick Cook, the other partner in the firm, was also one of our university pals. He’s walking toward me, and I head into the kitchen before it looks like I’ve noticed him. He’s a little drunk and super chatty, and I don’t much feel like discussing work or West Ham United right now, which are his two favorite topics of conversation.

He follows me and grabs himself a beer from the big fridge. “Enjoying yourself?” he asks, leaning against the counter. “Or missing the Florida weather?” He grimaces as he nods outside.

It’s not a glorious day, but it isn’t cold and it’s not raining, which by English standards is a definite win. “Nope,” I say, smiling. “All that relentless sunshine gets you down after a while.”

I lived in Florida for years, but I wasn’t sad to leave. Things got complicated—a polite way of saying completely fucked up. There was a case that went bad, people who were even worse, and my life took me down some dark and twisted roads. Things happened that even now I don’t like to think about, things that changed me forever.

---