Judy banged her phone down on the table in panic. She hadn't really expected Nick to answer; if he hadn't responded to the calls Clawhauser had already made then something must be seriously wrong. Normally Nick was inseparable from his phone. She tried not to let her mind wander to the scenarios which could have separated him from it. She paced around her room, haphazardly grabbing bits of her uniform and throwing them on. What if he was hurt? He could be lying in an alley somewhere, slowly bleeding out…Or worse, her subconscious whispered, he could be dead already. She shook her head viciously, trying to rid herself of the thought. This was Nick, she reminded herself – the smoothest talker in Zootopia. If anyone could wriggle out of trouble it would be him.
She ran downstairs and jumped into her patrol car, switching on her radio. "Clawhauser, I'm on patrol."
"Judy…" the cheetah sounded pained "Bogo says it's not your shift yet. We've already got people out looking for him."
"You can't expect me to just sit at home!" she said loudly.
There was a muffled conversation on the other end of the radio, and then Chief Bogo's voice came through "Hopps, what exactly do you think you are doing?"
"Sir, please let me look for Nick – there's no point me worrying at home when I could be doing something useful."
Bogo sighed noisily "I take your point Hopps. But you need to meet up with one of the other patrols; I won't have you chasing round the city on your own and getting yourself into a mess through your rash behaviour."
"Sir, I wouldn't-"
"Yes you would." He interrupted her "I know exactly what you are like." His voice softened "And I know you think I'm a hard-hearted mammal, but believe me I do understand. I know that in this kind of situation you are at risk of forgetting your training, not waiting for backup, and diving in in order to save your friend. Which is admirable, but not what I need in a police office. Therefore, you will meet up with the foot patrol on 37th street, which is near where CCTV showed Wilde last. That is an order, Hopps. Clawhauser is radioing them now so they'll be expecting you."
"Okay sir." Judy said accepting his decision "Thank you."
"Good luck."
She drove to 37th and parked, quickly spotting the patrol. The officers were colleagues she knew vaguely, a rhino and an elk. They looked at her sympathetically, but didn't say anything beyond giving her the facts. Apparently CCTV showed Nick heading towards an alley at the far end of the road, but there were no cameras at the other exit of the alley. The next camera on his most likely route home was a hundred metres away, and had no sign of him. The two officers had already walked the route between the two cameras, and found nothing. There were no signs of a struggle, no blood or dropped items, no clues at all in fact. "They're checking CCTV on all other possible routes he may have taken." The elk assured her.
"And there's nothing suspicious on either of the two nearest cameras?" Judy asked "No-one else going into that alley, no one speeding away from the area?"
"There were a couple of mammals going into the alley using the same entrance as Wilde – officers have been sent to question both of them – but of course anyone could have entered from the other end, and then left the same way without being seen."
"It's probable that this was a job by hardened criminals." The rhino said "An amateur would have been no match for a ZPD mammal, even if he was only a trainee."
Judy's sensitive ears picked up on the 'was' in the rhino's sentence. Did they think he'd been killed? Or was it just poor phrasing? She didn't want to ask.
The three officers spent the next few hours knocking on doors and asking if any of the residents had seen or heard anything during the night. None of them had. In the middle of the afternoon Clawhauser radioed to let them know that the two mammals that had been seen in the area seemed to have no connection to Nick's disappearance, and hadn't seen anything suspicious.
At 5pm the rhino and elk took Judy back to the station with them, and encouraged her to eat something. Bogo caught her in the corridor as she was heading back out "Hopps, you look terrible. Get some sleep before your shift – you can sleep in one of the bunks here, and we'll let you know if any developments occur."
Judy wanted to argue, but the truth was that she was so tired she could feel her ears drooping, and it wouldn't help anyone if she was too tired to work. Eventually she nodded, eyes downcast. Bogo put a hand on her shoulder and steered her gently to the bunkroom.
She curled up on a hard bunk, and waited until Bogo's footsteps had faded down the corridor before she let her tears fall. Nick's disappearance forced her to realise how much he meant to her. He was more than just a colleague, more even than a friend. He had been part of her biggest adventure, and it was their partnership that had saved the city. How could she cope if something had happened to him? How would she manage without their jokes and nicknames, without ever seeing his smile again?
