Chapter Seventeen

Beasely ignored the stunned couple and snapped the recorder shut.

"This is the conversation where Trunks Briefs is talking to his accomplices."

The detective paled a bit when Sasoli glared at him.

"I mean supposed accomplices."

"Really," Uub chewed his lip thoughtfully, "the second voice was never identified?"

"No," Beasely tapped the recorder, "I've actually been meaning to listen to it again."

"I should listen to it, too," Sasoli announced, making the detectives glance at her. "I can probably identify the voice. I know everyone who works here."

"Makes sense to me," Beasely smiled and pushed play.

The two males voices sounded immediately and the damning conversation began.

The first voice was obviously Trunks.

Sasoli had been hoping there was a mistake in the voice ID but the second wasn't as obvious at least to the detectives.

Sasoli felt her body slump as she recognized the voice. Oh god . . .

Beasely was frowning with concentration, "The second voice sounds familiar."

Uub's brow shot up as the voice snapped into place. It couldn't be . . .

He glanced at Sasoli to find her staring at him with a defeated look in her eyes.

This is my fault. I should have gone through that folder before ever giving it to Uub. Sasoli thought miserably.

"So, Sasoli," Beasely stopped the tape, "Can you identify it?"

Sasoli opened her mouth to reply when the unidentified voice sounded in the hallway. She brought a hand to her forehead and shut her eyes.

"Sasoli . . ." Uub said her name softly as he stopped Beasely in the act of pulling out his gun.

"I know," she nodded and waited for her brother to come around the corner.

"If you can send the order to my office . . ." Zarah trailed off as the two detectives plus his sister, stared at him grimly.

Waving away the secretary, he glanced at the trio, "What's wrong?"

Sasoli snarled at him in saiyan.

Zarah blinked, "What did I do?"

"You have to the right to remain silent . . ." Beasely trailed off as Uub shook his head at him.

"You're voice was identified as the accomplices on Trunks' tape," Uub explained sadly, he knew the saiyan had nothing to do with the murders.

"I'm going to jail?" Zarah glanced at his sister for confirmation.

Sasoli crossed her arms and nodded jerkily.

"I see," the male twin nodded, "So who's taking me in?"

Beasely stepped forward hesitantly. He couldn't believe Zarah was just going to go like this, without a fuss.

"I am."

"Ok," Zarah nodded, "Pan's going to be pissed. Sasoli, you still have to retrieve the package by no later then tomorrow, tell Pan what happened to me, and . . . I guess you're the new president of Capsule Corp. I'm ready to go now."

"There isn't anything you want to get?" Beasely could be heard as they walked away.

"Why? You're just going to confiscate it . . ."

Uub waited until he couldn't hear their voices before turning to Sasoli. She was just standing there with her arms crossed tightly and her eyes darting around the hallway wildly.

"Sasoli," Uub touched her arm, concerned.

She glanced at him blankly.

"I can't be the president."

"Sure you can," Uub rubbed her arm in what he hoped was a soothing manner. "I'm sure you'll make a great president."

"No, I can't . . . but Bra can't do it. She doesn't know how and Maron's only had a weeks worth of experience as an assistant, not the president. Sasoli's eyes suddenly came into focus as a random secretary came into the hallway.

"You, it's all your fault! Why don't you just-"

"Sasoli!" Uub grabbed her arm and waited for her fist.

It never came.

Instead he could feel her shaking.

"I need to be alone for awhile," Sasoli turned back towards him, "I need to find a way to fix this."

Uub followed helplessly but didn't follow her into her office. She was really shaken up. Not that he blamed her, three people she really cared about were in jail.

Guilty until proven innocent.

It was frustrating.

They had evidence to prove they wouldn't, couldn't, and just didn't have the time to kill those women but it was too fantastic to be believed. Honestly, if those three wanted to kill someone then all they would have to is blast them into oblivion.

Uub glanced up suddenly as movement caught his eye. There was a woman sticking her head out of her office, and, there, another.

He stiffened as they inched out of their offices and slowly started toward him with a glint in their eyes. They were suddenly joined by two more, then four . . . then six. . .

"Sasoli," Uub knocked nervously on the door as the women came within ten feet of him.

Then five . . .

"I'm coming in," Uub ducked inside and listened at the door. "I'm sorry, Sasoli, but. . ."

He trailed off as he made an interesting observation about Sasoli's office.

It was empty.

That can't be right, Uub glanced around again, the only place she could be was under the desk.

He looked and she wasn't there.

Where could she have gone? Uub was perplexed. There were no windows, no other doors, and . . .

Wait a minute, Uub glanced up at the vent, didn't she come out of that earlier?

He moved the chair under the vent and tried to peek in.

Should I knock? Came the odd thought, but who had ever knocked on a vent?

"Sasoli?" Uub slowly eased open the vent, ready to shut it immediately if he had to.

The first thing he saw was her hair buried in . . . furs? Slowly, he pulled back one of the furs until he could see her eyes.

"What?" Her voice was muffled by the fur but still undeniably tortured.

"Are you ok?" He asked softly.

She shook her head.

He sighed and leaned his head against the vent.

"Is there anything I can do?"

She shook her head again, her eyes shimmered with tears when they dried.

"Sasoli," Uub reached out to stroke her hair but stopped short and pulled the fur away so he could see her whole face. "Surely, there's a simple solution to this somewhere."

"There isn't," Sasoli closed her eyes as he rested his hand against her collarbone. "Even if Bra could do it, we're still understaffed. The paperwork gets higher by the day and I can only be so many places at once."

Uub watched her quietly when suddenly a solution presented itself.

"Why don't you call Bulma? She knows how to run the company and . . . Bardock's a scientist, isn't he? Master Goku and Vegeta could help with security."

"Aunt 18 could help with the paperwork and I could put Mom in charge of the secretaries," Sasoli brightened and shot out of the vent into Uub's arms.

She gripped him about the neck and squeezed, her gratitude came in a form of a hug.

Uub caught her about the waist and held on.

"Thank you so much," she breathed into his neck.

"You were just too close to the situation," he answered truthfully and squeezed her a little bit more.

She let go of him then and he loosened his hold on her but still kept her within the circle of his arms.

She gave him the sweetest smile and then pressed her lips to his cheek.

Then she was moving away, toward the phone.

"Bra, Zarah's just been arrested . . . on the same charges as Trunks so you'll need to write him a note as well. . . Calm down . . . I'm going to call Aunt Bulma . . . What? You can't be president . . . You don't have any experience . . . Bra . . . No, I'm calling her!"

She slammed the handle down and quickly dialed another number.

"Aunt Bulma . . ."

Uub sighed and pulled out the case file so he could get an idea of what they were dealing with . . .

The first thing he saw were the victim profiles. Five women and one fairly effeminate male had fallen victim to the madman before he stopped. All victims were the same height, approximate weight, body type, and coloring.

Uub studied the pictures closely, they all had the same hairstyle as Sasoli . . . her coloring as well . . .

He glanced up at Sasoli, in fact, all of the victims resembled Sasoli in some way.

The killer was selective, maybe too selective. Maybe the reason he stopped was because he was after someone specific and he found her. The one he wanted from the beginning and that person-

"-is Sasoli," the female saiyan smiled into the phone. "I wanted you ask you a favor . . ."

"Sasoli," he breathed.

She glanced up at him and smiled before turning back to the phone.

He turned back to the case file. It made sense, the killer murdered one woman a night until Sasoli appeared out of nowhere offering to deal with the police on her terms.

The killer stopped when she became involved.

No witnesses, no evidence, and no clue to the identity of the killer. The only thing he really had was the recorded conversation but that was circumstantial.

"All right," Sasoli set the phone down with a grin, "the reinforcements are on their way."

Her smile dimmed as he just watched her grimly.

"Something wrong?"

"Why were you undercover the day I met you?"

She was startled by the sudden change of topic.

She said nothing.

"Why did you try to capture the killer by yourself?"

She glanced away from him.

"I was trying to help Trunks."

Uub believed her, though he knew she wasn't giving him the whole truth.

The real question was: Should he tell her?

She felt guilty enough that she wasn't able to prevent the entire situation. How was she going to feel when she found out she might be the cause of it all.

Sasoli grew uncomfortable, "Come on, we don't have time for this . . ."

She pulled him out of his chair.

"We'll go over the folder together later. Everyone's coming."

Uub blinked.

"Everyone?"

Her grin returned.

"Everyone."

Bulma and 18 found themselves in the president's office where a mountain of paperwork awaited them, literally.

There was also a surprised blond.

"Mom?" Maron glanced at Sasoli full of questions but hugged her mother, "What are you doing here?"

"Ignored like I didn't exist," Bulma sniffed and then glanced at the paperwork with distaste. "I didn't realize the problem was this bad I would have come sooner."

Sasoli wilted a bit and Uub was quick to comfort her by touching her arm.

None of the females missed the gesture though it only comforted one.

"Still, could have been worse, I guess," 18 started going through the papers.

Bulma dropped her shoulder and joined her.

"We've separated the papers into piles . . ."

Maron and Sasoli rushed over to explain their temporary system. The original filing system was incomprehensible, known only to Trunks and his turncoat secretary. So Zarah had come in and gutted all the file cabinets to rearrange them so he could know where everything was but, unfortunately, he'd been arrested before he'd finished. Luckily, Maron was no stranger to Zarah's unique filing habits.

However, with Bulma effectively taking over once more, everything was to be reorganized to her standards.

Uub left the women to the countless papers and studied his surroundings. Curiously, he found one file cabinet seemingly untouched and intact despite the madness.

Uub wandered closer to the cabinet and, to his surprise, found Sasoli's name atop it.

This must be where they store her work, he thought as he opened a drawer.

That's when he noticed something interesting, all the files had city names. Some were almost empty while others were fat and had several dedicated to it.

He randomly selected a fat file and opened it. . .

. . .and had it snatched out of his hands.

Sasoli carefully replaced the file before turning to Uub with a smile. "We don't have time for this right now. We have to show Uncle Vegeta where his post is, you can check out those files later."

Uub was forced from the office so fast he couldn't even form a complaint.

Bulma and 18 glanced at each other before the blue-haired retiree encapsulated the entire cabinet and stuck it in her purse for safe keeping.

"When did that start?" 18 lifted a blond brow at Bulma.

"I have no idea but I'm sure we'll find out," Bulma and 18 turned to Maron with evil smiles.

End of Chapter Seventeen

AN: Ahah! A couple more reviewers have trickled in! I'm so excited! Of course I am curious as to what question have been raised cat youkai. Anyway, still catching up! Expect another update soon . . . probably sunday . . . probably. Michelle