Heart Search by Robin D. Owens Read Free Book Online Page A

her father’s: cold and flat and deadly, despite the handsomeness of his face. His smile was an incipient threat.
    He half lowered his eyelids, raised a languid hand. “But four hundred gilt should keep the wolves from the door.”
    It would be worth it to get them to go away. No. Bad thinking, old thinking. “No.” She moved back to a corner marked on the rug for teleportation. “I’m leaving, and if I find that you have broken one object, I’ll report you to the guards.”
    Her father’s hand swept out and knocked a china mug from her table with such force that it hit the wall and shattered. He smiled. “Oops.”
    Mica, we ’port on three. Just hold on. One, Mica cat, two . . .
    Her uncle had linked arms with her father, pulled. “You don’t need to go, Cammi-girl. We’ll leave.”
    “Same old song.” Her father’s lip curled, he set his voice at falsetto. “You broke my cup. Boo-hoo.” As they strolled to the door, he glanced over his shoulder, now all fake affability gone from him. “You’re pitiful.”
    “I wonder that you bother to visit, then,” Camellia said thickly as fear-tears coated her throat. She didn’t think they’d heard her as they left, slamming her front door. Her knees weakened and she tottered to the sofa and fell onto it.
    Mica revved her purr. I did not like them.
    Camellia curved over herself, panting, nearly trembling with reaction, holding her arms close around her middle.
    I didn’t like them, Mica repeated, hopping down from Camellia’s shoulder, walking along her thigh, and nudging her elbow. Want on lap, now.
    With a gasp, Camellia straightened and Mica set her claws in Camellia’s trous and climbed up. They were not NICE. Mica sounded shocked as if she couldn’t imagine someone being “not nice” to her or her FamWoman. Staring up at her with wide yellow eyes, Mica put a paw on Camellia’s breast. They were Not NICE.
    “No.” Camellia stroked the kitten. “They weren’t. They were mean. They’ve always been mean.”
    Mean. Mica lashed her tail. I know that word. Now I know “mean.”
    “Oh.” It was a small break of the heart that Mica’s first hours with Camellia had taught the kitten the definition of mean. “Oh.” Tears trickled down Camellia’s cheeks. She stroked Mica and began to settle until she recalled that she’d left her diamond bracelet in her antique puzzle box. She jolted to her feet, tucked Mica under her arm, and sped to her bedroom.

Four
     
    T he wooden box lay in shards on her bed, broken open. Her bracelet was gone. So were a few pieces of costume jewelry that would give her uncle a pittance from someone dealing in stolen objects.
    Her stomach squeezed nausea up her throat. She’d purchased the bracelet the first year Darjeeling’s Teahouse showed a good profit, to celebrate. She’d worn it like a talisman at the opening of Darjeeling’s HouseHeart earlier in the week. Left the bracelet in the box in her wall safe instead of taking the time to return the diamonds to her private box at the bank.
    The door of the safe was wide open and empty. No gilt paper or coins. There hadn’t been much there.
    She looked at her second safe, the hidden one. Her uncle, obviously in a hurry, had vanquished the spellshields and punched the wall instead of trying to finesse other physical levers and combinations. His Flair for finding gilt and valuables, no matter how secret, was still strong.
    Hadn’t been much in there, either, but they’d gotten more than four hundred gilt from her.
    Camellia sank down on the bed, put her head in her hands while Mica played with pieces of the pretty antique puzzle box. Her uncle hadn’t needed to break that. He could have worked it in seconds. He simply enjoyed breaking things, maybe her things in particular. She rubbed at her face, went to the waterfall room to splash water on her cheeks, hot with anger and despair. No matter what she tried to do, this never ended.
    After she patted her face dry, she