Thief Read Online Free PDF Page B

room. Video surveillance had apparently been off at the time, which wasn’t possible - it was never off. Computer records of door openings showed no such events, yet the door must have opened, mustn’t it? Unless she glided through walls, something he wouldn’t put past her. Infra red and motion sensor systems had not only failed to act, but equally important failed to note their failures to act. Yet every system told him it was in perfect order when he interrogated it. Nothing had failed, and yet she was here.
     
    Questioning proved utterly fruitless, as he should have expected, the more so because he actually understood her answer. Sherial had no knowledge of the systems in question. She’d simply entered the room and thought nothing more of it. And she was telling the truth. He knew it even if he couldn’t explain it. She always told the truth. If he knew nothing else about Sherial he knew that much.
     
    Interrogation over before it even began they’d moved on to breakfast, and more chaos immediately followed.
     
    For a start he discovered he’d suddenly become a vegetarian, his planned cooked breakfast a thing of the past before he’d even started preparing it. His fridge had been cleaned out and it wasn’t just the bacon that was missing. His freezers had also been emptied. His pantry had been rifled. And all the remaining food stores had one thing in common, they no longer contained any meat. Not even a scrap. Even the tinned goods had no canned meats left.
     
    He must have looked like an idiot as he anxiously started shaking the unopened cans of meat and fish, stunned by their impossible lightness. Disbelieving the evidence of his own hands, he opened a few of the heat and eat products, just to confirm they too were indeed emptied. They were. Spaghetti and meatballs, was now just spaghetti minus the meatballs. He poured the mix into a bowl and forked through it like a madman just to be sure. Tins of shepherds pie had become tins of mashed potato.
     
    On a sudden, crazy impulse he’d ripped opened a packet of dried pork chow-mien, only to find every single piece of pork was missing from it. There was rice, onion, noodles, untold dried vegetables and other bits and pieces, but no meat. Missing from inside a sealed packet. Surely that was impossible. Resigning himself to the absurd, he mentally decided to add it to the list.
     
    To cap it off there wasn’t even a trace of how a ton or more of red meat had disappeared, or where it had gone. Again the security systems had apparently gone down without explanation. And her answers to his questions were more impossible still. Apparently, he was now feeding a pride of lions, which had fallen on hard times somewhere in Africa.
     
    Again it was the truth, even if it made not a scrap of sense. As Sherial told him he suddenly saw them in his mind, the pride, feeding off the remains of his freezers, all still cold. A couple of males, five or six females and easily a dozen cubs, all ravenous. At least he had to admit they were cute. Knowing there was nothing else to do he resigned himself to his fate and wished them good eating.
     
    No doubt from her perspective it was the proper thing to do. But from his it wasn’t good at all. It was a nightmare. This house, his own castle, could normally support him for at least a year long siege, he’d made sure of that. Yet suddenly there wasn’t a single scrap of meat in it. He’d be lucky to last more than a few months the way it was. Once more the angel had torn apart his safety net.
     
    Hoping the shocks were over for at least a little while, he skipped breakfast grabbed an oat bar and escaped to his sanctuaries, the pool, gym and dojo. For it was here that he normally trained and meditated, allowing his body and mind to achieve their full potential. And this day of all days he knew he needed to be at his best.
     
    But it wasn’t to be. He didn’t even make it to them before more inexplicable problems confronted