Animal Whisperer: Take Back My Life and Love Chapter 346: The Haunting

"Fine. You and your trinket can spend the night together."

Barry’s irritation cut through the moment. Any warmth Nancy had felt was gone. He looked at her, wondering how someone so drunk could still have a brain that sharp.

Once they reached the zoo staff quarters, Barry carefully settled Nancy into bed. Snowball, the ermine, heard the commotion and poked its head out from the blankets where it had been warming the spot for her.

"Nancy's back!"

The little creature tilted its head, looking confused at the sight of Nancy death-gripping the gemstone-encrusted cat.

Barry looked at Snowball. He couldn't understand a word of the ermine’s chatter, but he treated the animal like a messenger. "Make sure you tell your human in the morning. She successfully robbed my restaurant’s most prized possession tonight."

With a soft sigh, Barry gently pried Nancy’s fingers open and placed the glittering cat on her nightstand.

The next morning, Nancy woke up rubbing her aching temples. She opened her eyes and jumped, startled by the gaudy, out-of-place statue sitting next to her bed.

"Where did this come from?"

Snowball immediately hopped over, wringing its tiny paws with a worried expression. "The mean human said you stole it from his restaurant last night! Should we give it back? What if Simon comes to arrest us?"

Snowball’s words acted like a key, unlocking a flood of memories. Flashbacks of the previous night hit Nancy all at once, and she groaned, burying her face in her blankets. It was beyond humiliating.

She shook it off, rushed through a shower, and sat down at her computer to bury her embarrassment in work. A short while later, Jorgan brought over some remedy for her.

"This should help with the headache, Ms. Nancy."

Nancy thanked him and tried to look composed, but her eyes were immediately drawn to a trending headline on her screen: "Summers Corp’s Viral Dog Food Now Under Strict Purchase Limits."

It seemed that after securing the algae, Summers Corp had stabilized the situation. However, to manage their thin inventory, they were strictly controlling orders and setting the prices at an astronomical level. Retailers and smaller firms who couldn't get stock were already voicing their outrage.

Nancy took a small sip of the warm remedy, her eyes narrowing. The opportunity was here. Ginnie couldn't possibly believe that solving the raw material crisis was the end of her problems. Nancy hadn't designed that krill-based alternative for nothing.

As she brainstormed, her phone lit up with a message from a starred contact.

"Ms. Nancy, I heard you are an animal communicator. My grandmother’s house hasn't been right lately. People are saying it’s haunted. Could you ask the local wildlife what’s actually going on?"

Nancy stared at the word haunted. A chill ran down her spine. She had always been a firm materialist, but since she started understanding animals, her perception of the world had shifted. Was she actually about to deal with a ghost?

As she hesitated, three more messages arrived, each one making the offer more impossible to refuse.

"My grandmother’s villa is by the lake with a great ecosystem; there should be plenty of small animals around. If you're willing to come, I’ll handle all transportation. All expenses are covered, and the consulting fee is two thousand per hour. I don't believe in ghosts, so I’m sure someone is behind this. If you find the truth, my company will provide you with krill algae at cost for the long term."

The contact was Faylin, a powerhouse in the business world and the exact partner Nancy had been courting. Faylin controlled the only domestic supply chain for Antarctic krill algae.

The alternative formula Nancy had prepared for Summers Corp was just as effective as Special Bites. Now that Summers Corp was throttling their supply and driving customers away with high prices, the market was desperate.

If Nancy launched an identical, lower-priced, and fully available alternative now, she could scoop up every disgruntled customer Summers Corp was ignoring. She would build her reputation on their failure and eventually swallow their market share whole. Summers Corp would be left holding a product that cost millions to develop and had nowhere to go.

This krill-based line wouldn't just be a one-off hit; it would be a permanent cash cow. If she could solve this haunting for Faylin, the cost-price supply of the algae would skyrocket her profit margins and make her untouchable. The material wasn't just for dogs, either; it worked for cat food just as well.

Nancy didn't hesitate anymore. She had to go.

By the weekend, after studying the layout of the villa, Nancy handpicked two animal detectives to join her, Snowball the ermine and Chunk. It was time to get to work.