Animal Whisperer: Take Back My Life and Love Chapter 9: Zoo Closed For Business

"Ding."

Just then, Nancy’s phone chimed with a new email.

The sender was Mr. Henry.

Nancy quickly tapped to open it.

The message read:

"Dear Dr. Nancy, your skill and kindness are well-known in the veterinary field, and you even founded an animal relief charity fund. Loren Zoo has been running at a severe loss, and I truly have no funds left to keep it operating. Most of the animals here are sick to varying degrees, and no other zoos are willing to take them in. I cannot bear to watch them starve or die of illness. I heard that you are urgently looking for work, so I’ve decided to transfer Loren Zoo to you free of charge. If you do not accept, the animals will be left to die."

In short, Mr. Henry was out of money and couldn’t care for the animals, but he couldn’t bring himself to abandon them. Since Nancy had a reputation for kindness and skill, he was trying to push the zoo onto her.

A touch of conscience, but not much.

Wasn’t this just moral blackmail?

Nancy was still bent over her phone when Jack issued the order to search for the missing head.

Moments later, he narrowed his eyes at the crowd of gawkers who had bought tickets to watch the drama unfold.

"From this moment on, Loren Zoo is closed to the public. No more visitors allowed."

"Seal the zoo completely. No outsiders enter until the killer is caught."

"Take all zoo employees in for questioning and statements."

Jack didn’t spare Nancy a single glance as he spoke.

Nancy snapped her head up from the email.

Mr. Henry had mentioned that the lease on the zoo grounds would expire next year. That meant she could use the property for free for one full year.

She had just made up her mind to gamble everything on this.

The bounty on the fugitive would bring in half a million. Within that year, she would use her special gift—the ability to understand animal speech—to revive Loren Zoo. She would earn money to feed and heal the animals, help them recover.

If things didn’t improve after a year, she could always contact an animal protection group she trusted to find them new homes.

But now Jack was throwing a wrench in her plans, announcing the zoo would be sealed off indefinitely until the killer was caught. Was that reasonable?

From what he’d just said, the murderer was likely the same one behind last year’s unsolved case. And that killer was still at large.

Did that mean Loren Zoo would be locked down forever?

Nancy immediately objected. "But when will the killer be caught? If it takes a year, does that mean Loren Zoo won’t open for a year? Where would the money come from?"

"The animals have to eat."

She pointed at the trees nearly stripped bare by the giraffes, and the tiger that had grown so thin it looked like a mangy dog.

Jack gave her a cold look. "Whether the animals starve to death is your problem, not mine. My job is catching the killer."

Nancy clenched her fists tight.

Even if she’d been tricked into taking over, she couldn’t abandon these animals.

As a child, her Summers family parents would regularly bring small animals home and dump them on her to care for.

Once she’d grown attached, if she made the slightest mistake that displeased them, they would kill the pet right in front of her.

She still remembered the time in middle school when she was sick with a heavy cold but forced by John Summers’s mother to sit the monthly exam. Dizzy and weak, she came in second instead of first.

As soon as the scores came out, John snatched the hamster she had raised from its cage and threw it off the balcony.

The image of its broken little body on the ground was etched into her nightmares.

She couldn’t stand to see small animals suffer or die in front of her.

That crushing pressure since childhood had pushed her into becoming one of the top veterinarians in the field.

When she worked at the Summers family animal hospital, every animal brought before her, she fought tooth and nail to save.

Jack issued another order. "Bring in every available officer. Search Loren Zoo from top to bottom for the victim Mandy’s head."

He turned to leave.

Nancy grabbed his sleeve, gritted her teeth, and said, "Lend me half a million."

That kind of money was nothing to Jack, barely the lift of a finger.

He stopped, tilting his head toward her. "Why?"

"For food for the animals and wages for the staff."

Nancy’s gaze was firm. "Once the Shield vaccine is released and I get my share of the technical dividends, I’ll pay you back."

Shield was the vaccine Nancy had developed, combining the strengths of all the vaccines on the market. One injection could prevent multiple diseases.

"You don’t know?"

At the mention of the vaccine, Jack let out a cold laugh. "Your pet vaccine failed in Phase III testing."

"Cats given the Shield vaccine suffered seizures and blindness."

Nancy reeled as though struck by lightning. "That’s impossible!"

"Both earlier trials were fine."

Shield was her life’s work. She had overseen every step, checked every detail until there was nothing left unchecked.

How could such a catastrophic problem have slipped through?

"You know whether or not the data was falsified."

Jack sneered at her, a smirk curling his lips.

"Fortunately, Ginnie is also a veterinarian. She had a friend at the testing agency repeat the clinical trial, and that’s when the flaw was exposed."

His fists clenched, fury twisting his features. "If it had gone to market with that defect, our Summers family would’ve been ruined by you!"

The moment Nancy heard that it was the real daughter Ginnie who had uncovered the problem with Shield, alarms went off in her head. She smelled a conspiracy.