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scanned arrests, I take it?’
    ‘No one I found met the requirements well enough for me to consider them, but I can provide that data too if you wish to examine it.’
    Fox sighed. ‘I suppose I should. You’re a trainee, after all. I have this feeling I’m wasting my time, but give me the list.’
    ~~~
    ‘I was totally wasting my time,’ Fox commented as she rode the elevator up to the UNTPP offices in New York Tower.
    ‘I’m sorry, Fox,’ Kit replied.
    ‘Not your fault. You did your job and I felt I had to check because you’re still in training. It was the right thing to do, but I was totally wasting my time.’
    ‘Well, you can at least have a pleasing time briefing Captain Deveraux.’
    ‘Well, he’s nice enough–’
    ‘On seeing Captain Deveraux, your reaction is similar to when you first see Sam and Marie in any given day. Dilated pupils, increased heart and respiration rates, low levels of sexual arousal. It dies away faster with Sam because he is a long-term friend.’
    Fox felt her cheeks heating. ‘Now I’ll just be embarrassed when I see him.’
    ‘Perhaps, but there will still be the same arousal. It is not a voluntary response, Fox.’
    Replying with a grunt, Fox stepped off the elevator as the doors opened and then stopped as she was saluted by a very neatly dressed UNTPP officer. ‘Captain Meridian,’ the girl said, using Fox’s old UNTPP rank, ‘please follow me. Captain Deveraux is expecting you.’ Fox followed on, wondering when they were going to stop calling her that.
    Deveraux, at least, remembered, and Fox was taken to his office instead of a conference room like last time. She got the feeling that was a step up in trust. He certainly seemed to feel she belonged there, waving her to a seat as he poured coffee from a pot which was already sitting on a table at one side of the room. Even with his back to her, Fox was annoyingly aware that she was a little aroused by him. He hit several buttons for her. He had blonde hair and she loved blonde men, and his hair was long enough to brush his shoulders and drape over his brow. The blue eyes were clear and sharp, the face quite hard, angular, but strong. The body was strong too, but not over-muscled: slim, athletic, toned. Then there was the accent: he was not old enough to be French so it was probably Quebecois. The UNTPP took people from all over the globe and Fox had met a lot of nationalities. She liked non-American accents.
    He turned and smiled, placing a mug of steaming, aromatic, black liquid in front of her and then sat down, stretching out his legs. ‘What can the United Nations Trans-Planetary Police do for Palladium Security Services today, Fox?’
    He had a good smile. Fox realigned her focus from sex to work and smiled back. ‘I’ve got another serial for you.’
    ‘Another international one? You seem to be making a habit of this. I’ll begin to think you just like working with me.’
    ‘Maybe I do. However, this one started here, in New York, six victims, but then he moved on. Two dead in Cape Town, three in Berlin. The last was this April. He’s a nasty one, Jason. He tortures them to death. Gender is not an issue. Neither I nor Kit have managed to spot a pattern in the victims. It took NAPA five bodies for someone to notice the link and Kit couldn’t unearth anything to suggest the German cops have put it together.’
    ‘Huh. So you wish for me to check with them, show them the evidence, and ensure they are treating it with the urgency it deserves?’
    ‘Basically. This guy likes hunting in summer. Late spring through early autumn anyway. He started kind of early this year which means he’s probably going to kill again soon. They’re going to have another body before the end of this month, probably.’
    ‘I’ll see what I can do. How did you get on to this?’
    ‘You’re following local news, I’d imagine, so you saw the reports of the arrest of Harper August?’ He nodded a reply and she went on.