My Eurofurence fund has taken several leaps ahead lately; go here to find out what that's all about: https://inkbunny.net/journalview.php?id=10340 , and please click here to donate: https://inkbunny.net/donate.php?user_id=3176. More on that later.  With that boost, and it being the end of the month, I wanted to give you guys and girls a little show of faith.  A lot of chapter 16 is done, and so with no further delay, here is an exclusive sneak preview of it:

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Valerie picked up the phone and then stopped, the receiver partway to her ear.  Her heart pounded; this wasn't like her.  There wasn't time for this.  There wasn't time to waste.  Pride came before a fall, and she had to swallow hers.  The vixen began dialling, glancing round her darkened office.  Everyone had gone home hours ago, herself included.  A pause, some clicks, and then the ringing tone.  She could always go home again later.  Another click and then a male voice answered.

"Julian.  Who is this?"

She took a deep breath, squeezed the phone a little tighter, then spoke.  "Mr Fleck, sorry to bother you at this late hour--"

"I said who is this?"  He cut her off, impatience and tiredness bleeding through his words.

"Mr Fleck, this is Doctor Shoemaker, you saw me--"

He cut her off again, "You've got some nerve.  Do you have any idea what we're going through?  Do you have any idea what you did?  Do you have any idea how we felt, taking those hateful paternity tests?  How dare y--"

She raised her voice, hackles raising too. "Mr Fleck.  Mr Fleck!  We havn't got the time for this.  She called me."

The words died in his throat with a strangled sound.  "...What?"

One paw clenched into a fist, she pleaded with the empty air above her office desk.  "Katie called me."  Now, suddenly, the fennec was trembling.

A sharp intake of breath.  "You've spoken to her?  You've spoken to them?  They're okay?  You know where they are?"

"Yes Mister Fleck, but--"  A tinny growl crept from the phone's earpiece to the doctor's large ears, conveyed from mercifully far away.

He snarled down the line.  "Well, tell me woman!  Where are they?  Tell me!"  The leopard was shouting now.

Valerie cringed, pausing for a moment to gather herself.  "I'm sorry Mister Fleck, she made me promise I wouldn't."  There was a sudden sound down the line of plastic groaning and creaking well beyond its design limits, a crack, a loud electronic squeal, then silence.  The line went dead.  The fennec gently replaced the phone on its receiver, and with a tight smile, retrieved a small can of pepper spray from her desk.  She sat down and waited.

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To be continued!