Valerie’s stomach rumbled and she glanced at her computer: almost ten o’clock. She’d been down in the lab since eight that morning and pushed herself all day. She skipped dinner again to get all the processing started and she was feeling that peculiar elation from completing a big section of project. Her sense of accomplishment was gratifying.
She looked around her little office at the University of Florida in Gainesville. Pictures of her sister’s family sat on top of her file cabinet. Her nieces and nephews were draped over a huge draft horse, sunny grins on their faces. Valerie’s framed degree hung on the wall by the door, nearly covered with pictures of big cats, some from refuges, some in the wild. Now, after five years with the University of Florida, she was up for tenure, and this w
