An:Hello there! What you are about to read was originally planned to be a one-shot story, with less than 5000 words but, it just kept on going, so it became a multichapter fanfic. Is it alright? Boring? I dunno, you tell me.
The bullpen was filled with the usual chatter that was heard before every single briefing. The discussions about the happenings of dayoffs and insanely stupid criminals were sometimes crossed with sudden waves of laughter. This chaos only disappeared when their boss stepped inside the room.
"Alright, everyone I won't bore you with the formalities, let's start with the assignments." The buffalo said, grabbing his glasses. "Officer Jackson, Anderson, Pennington. You three take the patrolling from berry road to Flock street. Fight out the rest. Gizzoli, Fangmeyer, Wolfard. You take the yearly equipment checkup."
"Nooo!" The three mammals groaned in unison, knowing their whole day will be spent indoors, checking the whole storage full of backup radios, tranquilizer guns, darts, and other necessary gadgets.
"You can also go on desk duty for the next 3 months. If you prefer that." The mocking was heard from Bogo. "Just decide quickly so I can assign the checkup to someone else who is more capable. It's one time a year, but on paper, we should do that 4 times. So stop crying around."
Defeated yet still unmotivated, the three mentioned officers walked out of the bullpen. Looking back at his notes, Bogo got back to the briefing.
"Hopps, Wilde, this morning we received a report about a disappeared cheetah cub. 16-year-old girl, Acacia street 22. Hopefully, it's nothing more than 2 worried parents, but it still should be investigated."
"Better safe than sorry." Judy nodded and hopped off the chair with Nick on her side. They left the room, as Bogo kept on assigning the jobs to the remaining officers.
Upon arriving at the garages they still saw the three of today's patrollers discussing who should take the strategically better route. Strategically better as in 'having the best coffee shop' or 'cheapest buffet' on the way.
Judy quickly took the car keys from the holder and while heading towards the cruiser, she turned Nick for a comment "Congrats! You managed to stay serious. You are learning!"
Giving a small chuckle Nick shrugged "The jokes need to be well-timed. And I don't want to waste our free time."
Judy suddenly stopped in her tracks and looked at Nick with disapproval. "Free time? A kid is missing!"
"Yeah. 16-year-old girl. I wonder what happened." Nisk snorted "I bet she just visited her boyfriend for the night and she will be back by the end of the day. She is a teen girl living her rebelling stage. What else would you expect?"
"Yes, that is a possibility but there are many other things that might have happened and in case it's more serious that's our job to figure it out."
"Gee, and I thought you were the optimistic one in our team. Alright, Mrs. Pessimism, lead the way."
"I'm not a pessimist but as I said, better safe than sorry." She sighed while opening the door of the police cruiser
"Whatever you say, queen negativeness." Nick bowed deeply and glanced back to Judy with a smug grin.
To show her opinion Judy stared back at Nick with bored eyes and turned to keys in the car "Get in, or you can walk to the address."
"Alright, Alright! No need to bite my head off." Nick chuckled and took a seat
After a few minutes' ride, they arrived in front of the mentioned building. It was a nice, cozy house with a well-kept garden. There were a lot of flowers planted, mainly roses but marigolds showed their colorful heads in the sunshine too. Before the duo could ring the bell, the door had already opened.
"What took you so long?!" Before either Judy or Nick could introduce themselves, they got shouted off immediately. "We've been waiting for 48 minutes!" The female cheetah's voice cracked. Her eyes were still watery and red from crying.
"I'm really sorry." The male tried to save the situation. "My wife is just upset. Why don't you come in?"
As both of them stepped inside a well cleaned apartment greeted them. Nowhere any fur or dust to be seen. The only unusual things were a bunch of tissues piling up on the couch. On the walls hung a few pictures, showing mostly the two parents and their four cubs. Three boys and one girl.
"Excuse us for the mess." The male said and quickly picked up the used tissues to make space.
"It isn't trouble at all," Judy said and tried to get to the point. "So. We would like to ask a few questions about your daughter, only if it's okay with you too of course."
The male cheetah nodded as they all took seats "Go ahead."
Judy took out her notebook and clicked her pen "First of all. What is your name, sir?"
"Gregory Spotts."
"And your daughter's name is...?"
"Lucy. Lucy Spotts."
"Mmkay, Lucy… Spotts..." Judy muttered while scribbling down the name. "Does she go out frequently?"
"No." Mr. Spotts shook his head "Not at all. She is usually back by 5 pm every day."
"Did she come home yesterday?"
"I… Uh… we don't know." Hearing the question, he broke eye contact and rubbed his neck. The fact that they didn't even know if she returned yesterday, made him a bit embarrassed. "Before you judge, we both work with my wife, and occasionally there are days we both have to go out at the same time. So the kids come home and they are alone."
"We aren't judging sir." Judy shook her head with a kind smile "So you found out about her disappearance today morning?"
Mr. Spotts' answer was almost drowned in his wife's sobs but he tried to be as loud and understandable as he could be. "Yes. We usually take the kids to school all at once but Lucy wasn't in her room. At first, we thought she might have walked to school today, It wouldn't have been the first time. We asked at the school and… and they said she didn't arrive today."
"Does she have a boyfriend?" Nick intercepted Judy's questioning.
"No." The immediate answer was heard. "At least not what we know of. But Lucy isn't the secretive type. She usually tells us everything."
"Alright. With your approval, we'd like to take a look at her room. There might be some clues about what might have happened."
"We don't need clues!" Mrs. Spotts shouted between two sobs "We need a searching team! She must be so scared."
"Come on, honey." Her husband tapped her back "Let the officers do their job. They know what they are doing."
"They aren't doing their job properly!" Mrs. Spotts came up with the usual accusation. If something wasn't solved immediately it was every single time the 'Police officers' fault'. However, it was even mentioned at the police academy, that It shouldn't be taken personally, since the mammal saying it most likely is in a shock
"Ma'am, I can assure you, we will do everything in our power to find your daughter," Judy said in a calm and determined tone. Of course, the family wants someone capable on the case, so it's best to show confidence "But we need something to start with. We can't just assume she is in the forest and send everyone there."
Unfortunately, these words reached the exact opposite outcome Judy wanted. The female cheetah's eyes suddenly widened and she covered her mouth with her paws "Oh my god. Lucy could be in the forest too."
"Wait. No! That's not why I… I didn't..."
Knowing that Judy's rambling could just worsen the situation, Nick quickly took over. "I think we will take a look at your daughter's room now. Which one was it?"
"Second one on the left." Mr. Spotts pointed at the mentioned door while hugging his crying wife.
"Thank you. Come on partner." Nick gestured with his head signaling they should get going but he still saw Judy opening her mouth to comfort the mother. "Officer Hopps, I need your assistance on this one!"
"Yes… yes sorry, I'm coming." The rabbit turned around but glanced back at the worried parents. She still had the urge to just say something calming regarding the kit's disappearance. Anything that could somewhat help the mother. However, aside from the usual 'Don't worry we will find her.' Nothing came to her mind so in the end she just followed Nick.
Opening the mentioned door, a well-organized room greeted them. The walls were painted light purple, with blue curtains letting the sunshine through the windows. On the walls a few posters were seen, mainly starring Hyena Gomez, and 3 sticker birds flying towards the window. Aside from the usual furniture, there was a birdcage too, with a sleeping parrot inside. The bird gave an annoyed 'squawk' and turned around to get some more sleep.
"Hmph." Nick chuckled. "It's a teenage girl's room, alright! Let's see if we can find anything that could help us. Mainly something showing a boyfriend."
"Oh come on. Can you get off the boyfriend topic? Her parents said she didn't have one."
"Yeah… And kids are famous for their honestness." Nick snorted "They would never EVER lie about anything to their parents. I bet out little Lucy had some secrets too that she didn't want to tell her parents."
Judy just ignored the fox and looked around. On the clean desk, there was only a lamp and a penholder that was stuffed with unused pens.
However, after looking at the lower part of the table, a bit less organized sight was seen. A few older pencil cases, some corrected test papers, and a… "Bingo!" Judy exclaimed "She has a laptop. We could get some information about her from there."
"Yeah… I hate to break it to you but that laptop is most likely password protected. Good find though. I bet you could sell it on the black market before the buyer realizes." Nick joked and looked around searching for other clues. His attention was directed to a bookshelf that was filled with different books. There was one series that took half the space on the shelves. Legends of Ga'Hoole, starring an owl on the cover.
As Nick kept on searching, he saw many School text- and notebooks. As he took one of those, he smiled. "It looks like she loved to draw in her books."
"Yeah…" Judy looked at Nick while waiting for the laptop to boot up. "...and those drawings help us… how exactly?"
Nick simply chuckled and pointed at the screen "Well. It's more than a locked laptop!"
As she glanced back at the screen, she saw the white letters asking her to type in the password. "Oh…" Her ears dropped down in her disappointment "Okay… You were right, it is locked… So? What do those drawings show you?"
"She likes to draw…" Nick said the rather obvious. "...and to be honest she is good at it."
Judy stepped next to Nick to get a better view "She seems to REALLY like birds too. Most of the drawings show various types of those. I can see Crows… Mainly Parrots… Blue Tits..." Looking at Nick's smile Judy rolled her eyes. "Oh, grow up already!"
Still trying to hide his smile the fox tossed the book back to the place he found it. "Let's see what else we have here… Chemistry book, Math, English, Biology. Hmm… There is one without a name." Nick pulled it out from under the pile and opened it.
"Huh… a diary."
"Really?" Judy stared at the little book and started reading. "'Dear diary. I'm not used to writing down my thoughts, but they say it helps so… Why not, am I right?' Wait, don't read it! those are her personal thoughts!"
Nick sighed and looked at Judy "This kid is missing. Trust me, I'm not interested in the latest school gossip or her secret crush… I'm searching for clues, alright? So? With your approval, may I keep reading our possible lead?"
Hesitating a bit, Judy finally let the book go. "Yeah, you are right. It just doesn't feel right. I wouldn't have written a diary if I knew some stranger would read it."
Nick's ears perked up, and his muzzle curled up into a smile. "Wait… so you have a diary?"
"Wha… Wait no! No, No I don't!"
"You can lie but your ears definitely can't. You have a diary!" Nick said slowly in a teasing voice.
"Oh just read that stupid thing already!" Judy took the book from Nick's paw and started reading it out loud."Dear diary. Today was a catastrophe. I just wanted it to be over as soon as possible. At least Terence was there to cheer me up, otherwise, I have no idea how I would have gotten through this day."
"Terence, huh? At least we have a name."
Judy kept on reading. "Dear diary, Today I met Philippa Harvey, and George. Terence introduced me to them. They are just as nice as him, and they helped me through the day. My first thing in breaks between lessons was to meet them outside.
Dear diary. I wish those idiots would leave me alone. It's like they love messing with me. I'm trying to ignore them so they will hopefully get bored after a while. At least I can always count on Terence. He would never hurt me for no reason.
Dear diary. Looks like I've left you on my table accidentally, so my always curious mum had read everything. From now on, I'll use a code to write. It will take more time but at least nobody will read you aside from me. Sorry mom, but I need some privacy here."
"Great..." Nick looked at the following random letters and sighed. "Can we decode the last parts? How hard can it be? It's a 16-year-old's idea in encrypting. It must be some obvious thing… 3 letters back or… I don't know..."
"Well… I'll leave it up to you." Judy gave the little notebook to Nick. "We have a few leads to follow. For example, we should figure out who this Terence is."
"Hmm… Might be someone from a higher grade? At least I don't think he is from her class since they can only meet after lessons.
"Or… An outsider." Judy brought up the possibility. "Cheetahs at this age are extremely shy and naive. Kind of a species trait and it's a problem with most of those families. If someone is at least a bit kinder than usual… That could cause some serious trouble if that someone has bad intentions."
"Are you saying it might be a kidnapping case?"
"Unfortunately it wouldn't be the first time. But let's not jump to conclusions yet. Thinking about the worst situation is the parent's job. Buuuut… I will talk with that Terrence if we get the opportunity."
Going out of the purple room, Nick saw the couple at the same place they had left them. "Mr. Spotts, Can I ask you one more question? Do you know who Terrence is?"
To everyone's surprise, it was Mrs. Spotts who answered. "One of her friends."
"Classmate?"
"No. But she didn't say where she knew him from. Whenever I asked she just reminded me to not read her diary, so I didn't push the question." Her eyes filled with tears again. "I'm a horrible mother who doesn't know anything about her cubs."
"Come on, honey don't say that!" Her husband said immediately, with incredible patience. It was seen that his daughter's disappearance got him worried too, but he had to stay strong. "The officers will find her."
"Yes. Judy nodded. We WILL find your daughter." Just as she said that she got stuck in a hug.
"Thank you, thank you!" Mrs. Spotts hugged Judy harder than the Rabbit expected. With all air pushed out of her lungs, she still managed to squeeze a 'You're welcome.' out. And after fifteen long seconds of trying to survive, Nick finally saved her from suffocating.
"Mr. Spotts, Mrs. Spotts. Thank you for your help." Nick got a more subtle appreciation in the form of a pawshake. "Which school does your daughter go to?"
"Shoreside high."
"Alright. Officer Hopps?"
"Let's go." She nodded while still trying to regain her strength after the strangling hug. She didn't want the mother to feel worse because of that and only took a bigger breath after finally sitting into the police cruiser.
"What is it? Forgot how to get out of a strangling situation?" Nick couldn't hold back his laughter anymore
"Yeah…" Judy said sarcastically and turned on the engine. "Kicking the crying mother in the stomach and hitting her face didn't seem the right option for me."
"They should make a 'How to get out of hugs' class in the academy for smaller mammals. I bet you would be the first student there!"
"Can you stop, and be a bit more serious? A kid is missing!"
"Yeah, you are right. Sorry." Nick wiped the tears of laughter "You just looked so cute while trying to break the hug without hurting anyone's feelings."
"Mmmmm," Judy growled and rolled her eyes. She gave up a long time ago on trying to stop Nick from saying cute.