After Nick had said goodbye to Judy before lunch, he decided to pay a visit to Aurora. He walked into the albino raccoon's office, and as always what stood out most to the fox was her fluffy white fur.

Aurora didn't even glance up from her workbench. "What do you want, Wilde."

Nick smirked and leaned against her desk so he could look at the raccoon with half lidded eyes. "I'm just here to see your happy smiling face."

She continued to look at whatever was occupying her attention on the workbench. "The only time you make me smile is when you leave."

Nick chuckled. He thought he'd rubbed Aurora the wrong way when they first met, but she was surly to everyone as far as he could tell. She only had one weakness that he knew of, and luckily his current predicament put him in the perfect position to exploit it.

"I was hoping you could install the ZPD apps on my new phone."

"You mean the apps available on the intranet website that any idiot could easily download and install himself?"

Nick grimaced. He had actually tried, but for some reason the install kept crashing. "I think your technological genius is required."

The raccoon sighed and finally looked up at him. "Just set your phone on the counter, I'll get to it later."

Nick nodded and repressed a shudder. As striking as he found her white fur, Nick had to admit Aurora's gaze always made him uncomfortable. Not daring to break eye contact with the raccoon, Nick said, "There is one other thing that only you can help me with, if it isn't too much trouble. I'm hoping you can recover the data off of this." Nick knew she loved tearing apart gadgets, and sure enough, her face lit up when he pulled out his broken phone.

As she stood up and walked towards him, Nick pondered how he would tell Aurora he appreciated her help. In the past, 'I owe ya, little lady,' had been met with who you callin' little, fox? While on the next occasion a joking, 'thanks, big gal,' elicited an angry are you sayin' I'm fat? And worst of all was her response to his usual flirty use of 'darlin.' Call me darlin' again, and you'll be talking to Mammal Resources. He couldn't think of anything else, so he simply said, "Thanks, Aurora."

She picked up the broken phone and grunted an acknowledgment, her attention already focused on the device as she deftly pulled the cover off and returned to her workbench. Nick started to walk away and she said, "Should be ready later today."

Later that afternoon, Nick and Judy sat in their patrol car not far from Savannah Central and quietly watched the crowd of mammals mill about on the plaza. Nick casually broke the silence. "How'd the doctor's appointment go?"

Judy was sitting up in her seat, her paws in her lap as she stared out the window. "It was fine."

Nick noticed her scent was neutral. A little too neutral, in fact. Nick silently cursed to himself when he realized how good Judy was getting at masking her tells and hiding her scent from him. He was trying to decide if he should push the matter when the radio crackled to life and Clawhauser said, "Unit 240, return to HQ immediately and meet me at the front desk. Code 900, over."

Nick reached for the mic, but Judy beat him to it. "10-4. ETA 15 minutes, over." Her face was filled with worry. "Wonder what's up? And why the rush and radio silence?"

Nick shrugged. "Could be the Internal Affairs folks, but seems kind of early for that." He smiled when Judy gave him another worried look. "Only one way to find out, Carrots." He buckled his seatbelt and added, "Bogo probably just wants to make sure we finish all our backlogged paperwork." Still uncharacteristically quiet, Judy looked grim as she pulled into the street.

Back at the precinct, Nick and Judy followed a subdued Clawhauser to the main conference room, where they spotted Aurora, Chief Bogo, and Wolford through the window.

Judy whispered to Nick, "What did you do this time?"

Nick made a rude noise in response before they entered the room.

Chief Bogo already sat at the head of the table. He cleared his throat. "Everyone find a seat, except you, Clawhauser." As the mammals sat and the cheetah moved closer to the Chief to hover uncertainly, Bogo continued. "Aurora, go ahead."

Nick briefly freaked out after the raccoon looked at him and said, "It's about your phone." Nick was pretty sure he'd purged all the shady contacts and texts off his old phone long ago, but he relaxed when the raccoon added, "The orange iCarrot, I mean. Can you tell me where you got it?"

Nick nodded. "Hang on, I think I still have the business card the mole gave me." He fished it out of his wallet and passed the card to Aurora, who in turn gave it to Clawhauser.

The cheetah looked at Chief Bogo expectantly and the water buffalo turned to address him. "This is priority one. The clock is ticking." Clawhauser nodded and hurried out of the room.

Wolford spoke up. "Should Officer Wilde still be here? Since he's a vic-"

Bogo held up a hoof to silence the wolf. "We'll need every small officer we can find for the raid this evening. After that-"

Out of the corner of his eye, Nick saw Judy cringe when he interrupted. "I'm sorry, but can someone kindly tell me what the hell is going on?"

Chief Bogo glared at Nick for a moment, before the buffalo's expression softened and he nodded at Aurora. "Please continue."

The raccoon cleared her throat and looked at Nick. "When I went to install the ZPD apps on your phone, I found an… anomaly. At first, I thought maybe it was just some malware, but this is way more sophisticated than anything I've seen before. There's tracking software embedded in your phone, Officer Wilde, so we're going to have to confiscate it and send it to the ZBI for further analysis."

There was a whirlwind of activity after that.

Aurora hastily checked Judy's phone and verified that it was clean. After that, Nick and Judy were joined by two otters and a large brown hare that was almost as tall as Nick. They were outfitted with brand new SWAT gear and loaded into a van driven by a tiger from the second precinct along with Aurora, Wolford, and McHorn. Since their destination was a shop for smaller mammals, and moles were notorious diggers, Chief Bogo felt calling for help from other precincts was the prudent course of action in case tunnels were discovered.

Wolford looked at the smaller mammals and smirked. "I didn't know we even had SWAT gear this tiny. I gotta take a picture-" He started to pull out his phone and froze when Judy glared at him before the wolf slowly put the device back in his pocket.

Nick tried to remember every phone call, text, picture, and place he'd been after he got the new phone. It freaked him out that unknown mammals had access to all his personal data, but he smirked at the memory of Finnick sneaking the phone the previous night to take a picture of his backside. Small punishment for whoever was looking at his data, in more ways than one.

Nick sighed. Not all the mammals were unknown. It was now pretty obvious how Marmota had managed to pop up and harass him over and over. Nick had to hand it to the woodchuck, he'd certainly pulled one over on him. Nick was pretty sure the rhino who'd stepped on his old phone was probably in on the scam too, and the former con-mammal felt dumb for not seeing what was going on sooner. Now they just needed to figure out how to trace everything back to Marmota, and raiding the mole's shop was the first step.

Wolford was dropped off to guard the back entrance and the van swung around to the front of the store, where McHorn and Aurora took up station while the rest of the mammals drew their tranq guns and swarmed through the door.

The store was empty, except for the mole who was busy restocking shelves. The mole paused to sniff the air when the officers approached. Nick couldn't help but smile after he heard Judy officiously say, "Bradley Diggory, you are under arrest. You have the right to remain silent." Nick ignored the rest of what Judy said and carefully watched the mole. Sure enough, ever so slightly the mole glanced to his right for just a brief moment as Judy continued to read him his rights. Nick followed his gaze and noticed a small desk against the back wall.

As the mole was cuffed and led outside, Aurora entered the store before Nick walked over to the desk. He easily moved it aside and revealed a hole in the floor that gradually sloped down out of sight. It was too small for him or the hare to squeeze into, but Judy and both the otters would probably fit.

Nick cringed when Judy jumped forward to volunteer. "I'm the senior officer, I'll go. Everyone quiet." She listened carefully for a few seconds before she crawled into the hole. Moments later Nick relaxed after Judy gave the all clear and the two otters scrambled into the hole.

They ended up finding over a dozen modified phones and a second computer in the small hidden room in the mole's shop. Later when they headed home, Judy asked Nick to drive. Since she only left the driving to him when she was exhausted, Nick wasn't surprised when she immediately fell asleep in the passenger seat.

They made it home and after leaving a trail of SWAT gear on the way to the bedroom before crashing onto the bed, Judy sleepily murmured, "We need to talk about something important, but I'm just too tired to do it right now." Nick nodded, and she continued. "Don't worry, it isn't bad. It's just… complicated."

He gently stroked her ears and Judy snuggled up against him. "Less talk, more sleeping bunnies." She smiled and was soon fast asleep.

Judy's scent got jumbled and more pronounced, like it always did when she was having intense dreams. Even though Nick was exhausted, he was too restless so he finally gave up trying to sleep and carefully crawled out from under Judy before he went to sit on the couch and watch the late night news.

The top story was an interview with a weeping vixen, who described an attack on her husband earlier that day. "I was so worried they would hurt me and my kits." Nick froze as a feeling of panic swept over him when the news announcer added, "This hate crime has been linked to a recent article in the Zootopia Gossip-" Nick flicked off the TV and his stomach churned at the thought that Judy might be in danger because of him.

Nick cast around for something else to do, before he sighed and decided to call Aurora and see if they'd recovered anything interesting from the mole's shop. He picked up Judy's phone from the table and turned it on, but before he could place the call a flurry of alerts spilled from the device. The most recent was a text from Hazel:

Call me immediately.

Nick panicked, worried that something might have happened to Peggy or one of Judy's other family members, so he quickly dialed Hazel. She picked up on the first ring and immediately began to speak. "Zeke lied about paying the storage fees this month, but-"

Nick interrupted her. "Hang on Hazel, it's Nick. Is everyone ok?"

"Nick?"

There was a long pause, so long that Nick wasn't sure if she was still on the line. Finally, Nick said, "Are you there? Hazel, what the hell is going on?"

Hazel spoke hesitantly. "I… I can't talk right now. I thought by now Judy… look, I'm sorry Nick, I have to go. Zeke and I had a huge fight earlier and I need to find him."

She abruptly hung up and Nick stared at the phone, just as another text came in from Judy's mom:

Herd Corp is considering withdrawing support from the Urban Farm. Call us tomorrow.

Nick sagged back into a chair and gaped at the phone while he tried to process all the thoughts whirling through his head. Nick froze when he noticed two new voicemail alerts on Judy's phone. One was from a Doctor Avery, and another was from someone labeled reproductive endocrinologist. It took every ounce of willpower Nick had to keep from digging through Judy's phone right then and there.

Pressing the device to his forehead, Nick held his head in his paws and tried to calm his thoughts. Nick couldn't figure out what was happening, but he was pretty sure that things were coming apart in Judy's family and he was only making things worse.

Nick jumped when the phone rang. He noticed it was a ZPD number and answered quickly. "Hello?"

Aurora spoke on the other end of the line. "Officer Wilde? I need you to come down to the station. I've found some info related to your missing father on one of the computers. The Chief said to pack your bags, because he may be sending you up to Northlund for a few days."

Nick curtly replied, "Understood. I'll be there shortly." His paws shook when he hung up the phone, which he stared at for several moments before he slowly placed it back on the table. After jotting a quick note to Judy, Nick grabbed his laptop and a few other things and quietly headed out the door.