The Heartbeat Thief Read Online Free

couldn’t breathe without feeling like her throat would close, trapping her in a final breath.
    Luncheon passed. Senza refused to come downstairs to dine with the family, choosing instead to nibble an apple while curled up on a chaise near the bed. Grandmother napped. Her breathing had become no more than rapid puffs, a soft heh-heh-heh keeping a simple cadence.
    She stirred in her sleep, her lace bed cap rustling against the pillow.
    “You’ve come, I see.” The words were quiet, but strained.
    Grandmother’s voice startled Senza. She looked up from her book, leaning forward, ready to comfort her. But Grandmother was not speaking to her.
    She followed the direction of the woman’s gaze to the far corner of the room. An empty chair, where a pale blue dressing gown lay draped over the arm. The tall windows overlooking the garden, the heavy brocade drapes tied back with sheer cobalt scarves. A pastoral painting done by a cousin from the chilly north.
    Nothing. Nobody. No one.
    And yet…something. A change in the air made the tiny hairs on the back of her neck stand, washing a wave of chills down her back. Something was different.
    Some thing was here.
    “Grandmother?” Senza whispered. She rolled her gaze back to her grandmother, afraid to move. The sensation of being watched pinned her in place.
    “You’ve been patient, friend. Just a moment more, love, I beg.” Grandmother fluttered her fingers, warding her unseen visitor off. A shush sounded as the dressing gown slipped from the chair to the floor, a heap of abandoned silk and lace.
    Senza’s tongue suddenly thickened, and swallowing became a task with the pulse booming in her throat. Every muscle had tightened and she snapped up from the chaise, creeping onto the security of the bed. She dislodged the apple that had lain on the bedspread all day, a silent, stubborn insistence that today should have been a good day.
    The apple clunked to the floor and wobbled out of sight under the dark bed.
    “Senza.” Grandmother tilted her head, finally seeming to notice her. “I love you, child. Know that my love for you is endless. Never miss a moment to live.”
    Before Senza could respond, Grandmother’s eyes turned back to the empty chair before falling half-closed. Her jaw sagged, her exhale long and guttural.
    Senza leaned closer. “Grandmother?”
    She reached out and entwined their fingers, but when she ran her hand over Grandmother’s wrist, there was no pulse.
    No pulse.
    “No.” A new alarm spread through her. The word became a seamless litany. “No. No.”
    “Della!” She lunged for the bell cord, ringing it over and over. Grandmother was unresponsive. The corner was still empty, even though Grandmother’s eyes still watched it.
    Senza ran her hands over the woman’s eyes, closing them. The blankness of her stare, as if a light had been extinguished. Those eyes held no more life than a painting, a statue, a graveyard angel.
    No more. Don’t look. She stepped back as if the floor had given way beneath her, fleeing to safer ground, away from grandmother’s slackened face.
    Those eyes had been so much more than a cold stone gaze could ever be. Better the eyes to close and the memory to live—
    Della appeared in the doorway, looking ready with an admonition but one look was all it took to send her running out again, calling for Mrs. Fyne, her voice cracking. Footsteps pounded on the stairs, in the hallway, and a moment later mother swooped into the room with a tearful cry. Her father, a close step behind, wrapped Senza in his burly embrace, trying to shield her from the sight of her grandmother’s body, her mother’s fruitless efforts to prop the woman’s gaping mouth closed. Trying to make her look as if she were merely sleeping.
    Senza peered over his arm at the still figure on the bed. Didn’t her father realize? She was past protecting. She was horrified and she was numb and she was very, very angry. Grandmother’s time had run out.
    She was