Disclaimer: I don't own Hey Arnold, or anything else that I've mentioned.
Summary: Helga, never imagined that one rash decision at a party, would turn her life completely on its head six years later, and leave her in a twisted web of secrets, lies and deceit. The skeletons are coming out. For Hillwood, it's the crime of the century. A love/crime/triangle drama! R&R!
A/N: You know the drill. Apologies for taking so long, pleads to enjoy the chapter. I did leave it on a major hanger last time. Sorry...kind of did it again.
We can't both become the same pawn,
that's made to fall.
Months Prior.
Arnold was the first one downstairs that morning, which wasn't normal or abnormal to their morning routine. They hadn't a routine that was set in stone, even six years later, and especially now that his schedule was all over the place. The first one to the kitchen was the one that made them breakfast, if he wasn't working nights. When he was, they fended for themselves.
They were on a smoothie kick, finding it to be a refreshing break up from their normal routine of omelettes, pancakes, and southwestern style burritos. Probably healthier too, though that wasn't their reason for the change.
Helga preferred a banana orange melody while he gravitated to a strawberry banana that she would never know the greatness of. He had always considered it an unfortunate allergy, but a more manageable one to live with than a peanut or gluten intolerance.
The drinkable breakfast had turned into the perfect catalyst for him to do something he'd been debating on doing for several weeks by then. Something that made him feel like a terrible human being for even considering in the first place. Their quest to start a family was going nowhere, and nowhere fast. It had been months at that point, and despite his delicate suggestions for them to seek some fertility advice, Helga hadn't been onboard in the slightest.
She always gave him the same grumble about not wanting to get pumped full of drugs that could result in multiples, but he knew that that wasn't the real reason. The reality of it was that she just didn't want to ask for help. Her steadfast independence had made it almost impossible for her to swallow her pride and seek help for what she wanted.
He'd never entirely understood that little quirk about her, though by then he should have been used to her stubbornness. It would be one thing if she didn't realize or acknowledge a problem, but she knew there was a problem, and still resisted the intervention. And round and round they went.
Far be it from him to ever try to turn off an abundance of sex, because it was great, but it hadn't stopped him from growing disenchanted with the merry-go-round. He wouldn't consider himself a particularly impatient man, usually just content with rolling with the punches, however, he'd found himself growing more and more disappointed in it all. Month after month of nothing. Month after month of seeing her so beside herself. Truthfully, watching her be so chronically frustrated was beginning to sour him on the whole experience more than anything. Not to the point of wanting them to throw in the towel, he wasn't a quitter, but to the point where he felt it necessary to intervene.
And so he did.
Hearing her still moving around upstairs, Arnold tiptoed out into the garage, gabbing a prescription bottle out of the glove compartment of his SUV, dumping a pill into his hand before returning to the kitchen. He dumped it into the their high speed blender with the rest of the smoothie makings, powering it on to crush everything together, effectively hiding his little white intervention.
He was drugging her, for lack of a better way of putting it. Though he considered it saving their sanity if anything. Drugging her with fertility treatments he'd procured from a colleague. He knew he was a shitty person for doing it. Kind of hated that he really hadn't been losing sleep at night over the idea of doing it, but in his mind the end would justify the means.
Hopefully it would work, she would be none-the-wiser and they could get on with life. That's what he wanted. For it not to be a giant, skulking shadow over their relationship anymore. Their wedding was so close that it was negligible at that point, but he was willing to risk having triplets just to end the madness.
He had just finished blending up the smoothie when he heard her jogging down the old wooden staircase. He popped the blender top off of the single serve glass, turned and sat it down on the island, sliding it across to where she stood on the other side, "Thanks," She distractedly said, face in her phone as she started downing the thick beverage, none-the-wiser.
Arnold quickly blended up his own before standing across the island from her, sipping as he watched her scroll through her phone. Pharmaceutical intervention aside, he needed to get her to not to focus on it so hard. The stress she was putting on herself was no doubt causing at least some of the problem. He was sure of that. "So...I've been thinking..." He began, getting a distracted raised eyebrow out of her, "I think we should dial down this whole...lets have a baby thing a few notches."
Predictably, that got her full, undivided attention. Her blue eyes finally fluttering up to rest on his form, "What do you mean?" She asked with a faint scowl forming.
The young guy gave her a casual type shrug as his free hand went up to scratch the back of his neck. Whether she wanted to hear it or not, he figured that if he was doing something as sneaky as drugging her, he could at least be honest about his feelings. "I'm just not...having fun anymore." He confessed.
Helga set her phone down, very confused at that point as to what exactly he was trying to say with that. He was done trying to have a family? What else could he mean? "So...you don't want..."
"No I do," He cut her off before she could even get down a non-existent rabbit hole. He probably should have just jumped all in on the explanation to begin with instead of letting her mind start turning. Helga had a way of overthinking things, and he knew that. "I'm just tired of it feeling like its a chore is all." It was true, all true. He missed the spontaneity of sex. It was still there, of course, but there had been a level of routine added into it that made it feel almost clinical, "I mean...sometimes I feel like you don't even really want me. You just want to milk me," He cracked a small, lopsided smile, hoping that adding a little humor to his plight would prompt her into understanding where he was coming from without provoking her prickly wall of defensiveness.
After all, he wasn't attacking her. It wasn't her fault. She probably just hadn't even realized how everything had gotten.
Luckily, Helga did quietly snort, cracking a small smile in return as she looked off for a moment, a tinge of pink flushing across her cheeks like she was suddenly a little embarrassed by him telling her that, "Milking you?" Her eyes shifted and replanted on his person, harboring a much softer shade of blue than before.
"Yeah. You just get what you want from me and run off into the sunset," He replied, his smile growing a little wider as his tone got more playful.
"You think so?"
"Yeah."
The young blonde leaned her elbows onto the granite counter top, giving her husband-to-be an adoring but slightly mischievous gaze, "Trust me, Football head, I still want you plenty," She chuckled, reaching out and grabbing her smoothie, "I wouldn't be trying to milk you so much if I didn't." She winked before downing the last bit of it.
"Well then...lets stop stressing about it so much. Let's start having fun again. Okay?" He suggested as he leaned across the counter, reaching his hand out, and affectionately rubbing his fingers on her knuckles, "I think that if we just have fun...good things are going to happen."
Still in the past.
Arnold considered himself to be a pretty observant guy. Especially when it came to people he was around on a regular basis. Case and point: his work buddy had seemed distracted all night. Almost like she was in a troubled mood. He knew all about that. Helga went through one at least once a month over a big glaring negative on a pregnancy test. If it hadn't been for him intervening he would have banished them from his house already, seeing as they caused nothing but unhappiness. It was unusual to see Monica bring whatever was bothering her to work though. He couldn't recall her ever being anything but on her 'A' game. The first thing that he wondered was that if something had happened in her personal life.
Maybe it was a gift, or maybe he just had a comforting face, or a soothing aura. He'd never been able to fully figure it out, but people had been loving to volunteer their problems onto his awaiting ear since childhood. Not that he minded. He offered his advice, but only if it had been solicited first.
It helped being on a particularly quiet floor with nothing to do but chat in-between check-ins and medicine doses. All of the ladies he worked with were swell individuals. Aside for the few that he always felt the need to politely remind that he was happily taken and definitely not interested in the classic doctor, nurse affair that many had fantasies of.
But Monica Davenport was different. It was as if it had never occurred to her that he was this tall, handsome doctor in residency, with a killer smile. Much less whether he was available or not. He appreciated how she treated him like nothing more than a colleague and from there, a friendship had bloomed, and so did her need to unburden herself of secrets.
There were things about her that he knew, but nobody else did. Things that he felt she shouldn't keep to herself, but had yet to be able to convince her otherwise at that point. He considered it a work in progress.
Now he wondered if something had happened.
It had been an uncharacteristically busy night, but he did finally catch her in the canteen, standing at one of the vending machines, grabbing a soda. They were close enough that he could come out and ask what the trouble was, but he still always felt awkward prying, always believing that if someone wanted to talk, they would on their own. That was the balance they had maintained with their friendship. Still, it wasn't going to prevent him from passively prying. He just re-framed it as, "You look worn out."
Monica popped the top of her soda can before tiredly sighing, "I didn't sleep well yesterday."
"Oh..." Arnold nodded, feeding some change into the machine for his own beverage. Maybe he he had been reading her funk too deeply, "Night shift wearing on you?"
"It's not that..." His friend began but trailed off, looking like she was deciding if whatever she was thinking was worth telling him or not, "I think I'm going a little crazy."
Arnold chuckled at that, retrieving his can, popping it open before turning to look at her, "Yeah, aren't we all at some point."
Monica quietly laughed for a brief moment before shaking her head, "No I...I don't know, I just...the other day I got home and got the feeling that somebody had been in my house."
The tall blonde scowled. That had not been where he'd expected the conversation to go. Never-the-less, he was intrigued and wanted to hear more, "Why do you think that?"
"I really don't know," His friend shrugged, feeling more like a crazy person than ever for what she was about to say, "There are some things that I feel like have been moved but...I'm not sure if it's just these long hours making me see things that don't exist or if I should be alarmed."
She was at least thinking of sane explanations. He'd give her that. He ebbed on the side of exhaustion himself. It probably had been the demanding hours that they had been working on the ER side. He had had his moments of sleep deprived crazy before—like tiredly driving to his and Helga's old apartment after a long night and wondering why his key didn't work anymore—but he'd hate to think that her claims had been valid and he hadn't at least attempted to do something. Even if it was solely to make her feel more at ease, "You want me to come by and take a look?" He offered. She lived alone. He got how that might have made things feel creepier to her.
"Nah," She waved him off with the shake of her head. "I'm probably just imagining things."
"Are you sure?" He asked, "I really don't mind."
"Are you going to keep asking if I don't?" She smirked.
Arnold shrugged, downing the last of his cola, "It's up to you."
"Yeah sure."
Morning.
Once the day broke and the shifts had ended, Arnold shot Helga a quick text, letting her know that he would be a little late getting home before following Monica back to her townhouse at the edge of the city.
His friend ushered him inside her small, one story abode, profusely apologizing for the mess because she was slowly re-painting everything. Indeed, there were tarps, paint cans, trays and rollers abound. "Helga has kept our house as a giant construction zone for over a year now, trust me, I'm used to it," Arnold assured, thinking about how ready he was to live in a finished home. He tried not to be too curmudgeoned about it. After all, that was what he had signed up for when he agreed to let his inspector girlfriend, who had an intense interest in remodeling, as well as being thrifty, pick a turn-of-the-century Victorian with 'good bones.'
Oh, who was he kidding, he loved their property, and couldn't think of having it any other way. As much as he was ready to have people over without feeling the need to hang a giant 'Under Construction' sign on half the house.
"It's just that I really hate painting, so I only do a little bit at a time," Monica explained, a hand on her hip and the other waving over the mess in her living room, "I know you're probably thinking, this is why I'm imagining somebody has been in my house. Because it is a wreck."
Arnold chuckled, deciding not to lie to be nice, "It crossed my mind."
His friend rolled her eyes, a little embarrassed by then, "There hasn't been anything weird in here, that I know of it...so I make my bed every day before I leave. Without out fail," She began, motioning for him to follow her to her room, "But there was a day last week that, when I got home, my comforter was pulled back just slightly." She walked in but Arnold stopped at the doorway and leaned against the jamb, feeling a little apprehensive about walking into her private space that way. A younger him wouldn't have cared, but he had a soon-to-be wife at home and that just made the idea of another girl's room a little weird to him, even if it were harmless.
And it truly was harmless.
"Without fail?" He was skeptical of such a vigorous regiment. He and Helga were tidy people, by all definitions of the word, but they were animated sleepers and half the time their bed stayed the way it had been woken up in.
Disheveled.
"Yes. It's a habit I've had since childhood because my dad was the strict military type." Arnold nodded, finally pushing off the doorway, overcoming the awkwardness and going to the windows, looking at the locks, and seeing nothing out of the ordinary other than that they were just old. "The windows were the first thing I checked."
"What else was moved?" He glanced at her over his shoulder.
"The kitchen," She made to leave the room and Arnold quickly followed her back across the house, "So...I had this cabinet door that was just...kind of ajar when I got home one day."
"Maybe you just didn't push it shut all the way," He crossed his arms, smirking a little as she pointed to the upper corner cabinet of her kitchen, "Sorry. Just playing devils advocate here."
She just kind of rolled her eyes, but not in a way that suggested she was irritated by him. She knew he wasn't trying to be a smart ass, "Except that I never open up that cabinet because it just keeps my misfit coffee cups." She explained, opening it for him to see her collection, "They're travel souvenirs, so I don't actually use them. Like ever."
Arnold nodded. He believed her. He believed that she had seen something that raised the hair on the back of her neck. However, he wasn't willing to rule out sleep deprivation at that point. Monica was a good nurse. Bright, smart as a whip, but he knew what lack of sleep felt like. It felt like crazy. It felt like, doing things when one was so tired, and then not realizing it later.
Still, he humored her by inspecting her kitchen windows, again finding nothing interesting. Though, he didn't really know what he would be looking for to begin with. Finally, with a sigh, he turned back around, his hands resting on his hips and said, "I mean...I believe you, but everything seems secure. It seems like if somebody was coming in here, it would be to rob you. But you haven't mentioned that anything has been missing."
"Yeah...I know. It doesn't make any sense," She agreed, her shoulders falling a little. "It's just...a weird feeling I've had."
"You probably should think about a security system anyway. You're on a decent street here, but the one over is bad news."
Monica nodded, "You aren't the first person to tell me that."
Spring - Months Prior
"Come on, old man!" Arnold teased his friend as he sprinted across the yard with a sack of mulch thrown across his shoulders and a wide smile plastered to his face. Gerald couldn't even begin to entertain that level of energy over yard work as he grabbed one of the sacks, lifting it to his shoulders. He hadn't even started and he was over that crap. Next year, he was getting a yard guy to do his mulch beds. The money would be well spent. Thankfully he had an eager friend that seemed to be especially spirited, considering he was volunteering his Saturday afternoon on a perfectly gorgeous day to help out.
"Bro, you're just going to tire yourself out and be whining by noon," He gave his friend an unamused look as he walked past him sprinting back for a second sack.
"You've got to get in the zone. Being begrudged about it doesn't get it done any faster," Arnold happily replied, to the grumbles of his best friend. Gerald dropped his sack in the natural area and opted to thrown on his gloves and grab his pocket knife to slice it open. If that crazy blonde wanted to sprint mulch sacks across the yard like it was a game then he'd let him. And he did. He had every one of them to their spots in record time.
Gerald dumped the sack and began spreading the brown earthy fibers out around his plants, catching his friend walk up beside him and grab a bag. Arnold had definitely been in good mood the last few weeks, that was for sure. Which was peculiar considering he'd been on straight nights at the hospital and was typically a bit of a pill during those times. It was something that Gerald could sympathize with though, having been on a night shift schedule his first year out of college doing quality engineering at a local manufacturing facility. That shit had been brutal on his health and mood. "What's got you in such a good mood lately? You finally prescribe yourself some happy pills for night shift?" He playfully joked at him, "Or are you on crack?" He laughed.
To which Arnold offered his own chuckle in return as he shook his head, sliding on his pair of yard gloves, "Just happy man," He smirked before grabbing the knife that Gerald had sat on the perimeter stone, sliced open his bag and dumped it beside the current layer that was being spread. Squatting down he began to push it out into a even layer. "Helga's pregnant."
Gerald turned his head to the side, sitting back on his legs as he watched Arnold appear very happily conflicted. As if he knew he shouldn't be saying anything, but couldn't bottle it up anymore. "Congrats man," He genuinely smiled, now understanding the extra pep in his friend's step that weekend.
"Thanks," Arnold said, beaming before adding, "Don't say anything. Helga's all...freaked out that something might go wrong so...she doesn't want to tell anybody until we're well out of the woods."
It was understandable to Gerald. He knew that there had been a struggle in that department for his two friends, "I won't say anything. Besides...Phoebe probably already knows anyway. Probably before you." He winked.
"It wouldn't surprise me," Arnold chortled, reaching for another bag to cut open.
"See, what'd I tell you man. It wasn't going to take as long as you thought, " Gerald smirked as Arnold dumped the bag, "I remember you being over here, crying that it could take years."
"It probably would have if we'd left it to nature. If ever."
"You finally managed to talk her stubborn ass into that fertility stuff then, huh?"
Arnold slowly stopped, his smile dimming completely as he dumped another bag, "Not exactly."
Gerald scowled, "What does that mean?"
"I...put her on some fertility pills but...she doesn't know she was on them."
At that, Gerald completely stopped what he was doing and turned to give his best friend a look of sheer absurdity, "You slipped her drugs?"
Arnold nodded, looking down with a face beginning to wash out with the shame he'd been steadfastly avoiding by telling himself the ends justified the means, "It's not as bad as it sounds."
"Bro, that's pretty fucked up," Gerald disagreed, still very shocked to hear that his friend had resorted to such a shady thing. Then again...it hadn't been the first slightly shady thing he'd done involving his soon to be wife.
"I know," Arnold sighed, removing a glove and running his hand through his hair, "I just felt like it was starting to cause a riff between us and I was afraid of it growing to a point where...I don't know...she'd eventually leave me."
"What is it about her that makes you so damn insecure man?" Gerald implored to the steadfast scowl of his friend, "She's been with you how many years? Agreed to marry you and has steadfastly been trying to have your babies. I'd say she's pretty serious about staying with you, so chill out with this insecurity."
Weeks Prior.
Gerald seated himself down in the uncomfortable plastic chair, far too petite for his broad framed body before reaching across the badly worn formica counter top to retrieve the cradled phone hanging on the side of the booth, eyes glancing through the plexiglass shield that separated him from his oldest and best friend. A man who he continued to catch hell over defending. He looked more beaten down since he'd last seen him. His hair was getting more shaggy and unkempt. His beard was beginning to go unchecked, but aiding in at least masking the thinness that his face had taken on. He was pale, the deep dark circles under his eyes striking a deathly contrast, far removing him from his usual sun kissed complexion. His eyes told Gerald more about just how tired and shattered he was than anything in words could. He understood, for the first time ever, what it looked liked to see the light go out in someones spirit. To see a broken soul. It was strange to see outside the pages of a book.
It was more than concerning for him, it was down right frightening to actually see.
He didn't understand what could have happened to cause such a rapid decline. "Hey man," Gerald spoke into the phone with a quiet voice. He felt so helpless, being unable to do much of anything for him. Except go see him and try to keep what little spirit was left alive, but even that appeared in danger now. "How are you doing?" He cringed at the choice of words, knowing that there weren't any better phrases.
Arnold slowly inhaled before speaking in a frail voice, "I can't sleep. Because I feel so sick."
The dark skinned man's brow furrowed deeply as he stared at the husk of a human before him being chipped away under the weight of an unjust system that kept him shackled down, "You look sick, man. Are they not letting you see a doctor?" Gerald had a flicker of hope that maybe physical illness was the culprit of his sudden downhill slide in spirit.
But that hope dashed when Arnold shook his head, running a hand over the top of his disheveled tresses before tiredly sighing, "I'm not ill...I just...I screwed up, I think."
"What do you mean?"
"With Helga. She...came to see me and I...said some things I shouldn't have."
Gerald scowled. He couldn't think of a single thing that Arnold could have said to her that she probably didn't deserve hearing at that point. In his opinion. He had to bite his tongue quite a lot those days when it came to Helga Pataki. He really did. "She's the screwed up one, man. Abandoning you like this. It's fucked up. Why was she even here in the first place?"
"I think they put her up to it. All she wanted to know was where Monica was."
"Wow." That was low. Even for Pataki.
Arnold scratched the back of his head before dropping his hand to the counter, "She just made me so...angry...telling me that...she hoped they fried me and...that our daughter would never know I existed and I...I just snapped at her. I told her that nothing was real with us. I told her that I...used her. I made it sound like she was nothing but a toy to me," He exhaled a worn breath that was thick with the relived regret that tightened his throat more painfully than ever, "And...then I told her to have a nice life."
"Damn." Gerald had not been expecting to hear something like that. As insufferable and irritating as Helga could be, he couldn't imagine her getting Arnold so worked up to the point of spouting something so hateful and untrue. She had straight up abandoned him, and he had still refused to strike an ill word about her.
"I didn't mean it though."
Gerald knew that, of course, because he knew Arnold. The guy had faults, and plenty of them, but when it came to Helga, the sun rose and set because she said so. "I know. You don't have to tell me. It's...the stress is high right now..." He didn't really know what else to say. He couldn't, and he wouldn't, sit there and tell the poor bastard that he thought that Helga was the one being an absolute prick, and maybe deserved a little bit of her own medicine. He knew Arnold wouldn't have listened to any of it, nor, he supposed, should he. "You're both stressed." Was as diplomatic as he could be at that point.
"Yeah," Arnold slowly nodded, but Gerald could tell that he didn't buy it at all. It led him to speculate that maybe a little more had gone down in whatever conversation they had had than just hostility and frustration. Whatever it was had seemingly broken his friend to a point where a simple diplomatic response just wasn't going to cut it.
Gerald sighed, deciding to make an attempt to defend Helga a little, if for nothing else than to try to ease the pain his friend was in, "Man I think she'll eventually come around. Deep down, I think she knows all of this is bullshit, including you being mean. With the hysteria of it all and...having that baby...I think it's making her resort to a...self preservation mode. Or...I don't know...mama bear mode I guess." Truthfully, he didn't know where Helga's head, or heart was in the matter anymore. She'd reacted in a way that he would have never guessed. He hoped that she would eventually come to her senses, but he couldn't in good conscious assume that. He could only speculate on the problem. "Phoebe was...a downright dragon about some things before Niko was born so..." He shrugged.
"I hope..." Arnold said, trailing off in a way that didn't give Gerald much hope at all.
Gerald wanted to get him off of the subject of Helga. There wasn't much of anything else that was pleasant to talk about, but she in particular was a pretty sore subject for him at that time. "Are you having any luck with a lawyer?"
"No."
"I've been trying. It's hard to get people to call you back these days."
Arnold gave a quick, sardonic chuckle before dropping his head into his hand, propping his elbow on the counter, "Nobody wants to touch me with a ten foot pole."
"Somebody else has to look at this and see the obvious set up. Has to." Gerald believed that. He'd never questioned Arnold's innocence. Not once. Even when the body of that young woman had been found in his storage unit or when Taylor had been found under his patio. Never. Once.
An engineer by trade, he was logical thinker, and logic had led him to only one possible conclusions. He would never believe Arnold was guilty, that was unfathomable to him. What he did believe, was that somebody was out to get his friend. There were no coincidences. There was certainly no, wrong place at wrong time scenario either. Everything was too neatly packaged, presented in a way that would make any prosecutor smack their chops.
And they were, because it was a career making case.
No, real life was far more messy that this contrived situation that was being presented. Many couldn't see the obvious patterns, but he could.
Which was precisely the problem. Gerald seemed to be almost alone on that unpopular opinion. Even Helga had gotten enamored by the snake oil that this con-artist had effectively pedaled to an entire city. The Killer Doc, Doctor Death, Murder House. He heard all of the clever nicknames, each leaving their own disgusting taste. There was an innocent man, who had had his life ruined, sitting behind those gruesome titles that people so carelessly threw around.
His blonde friend didn't have anything to say for a few moments, almost as if he were hoping Gerald would move on to the next subject. "I don't want to live the rest of my life in a cage," He said in a quiet voice.
As much of a statement as it was, Gerald could also hear the desperate cry for help. "You've just got to be positive, man. You can't let this place tear you down."
"Yeah..." Arnold again gave a lackluster nod. "I honestly don't know...how much longer I can do this though."
"You can't give up, Arnold. You can't. If you do, they win."
Arnold sighed, rubbing his temples. His head hurt so bad, "I uh...sent you a letter. To Give to Helga. Can you do that for me?"
By that point, Gerald realized that his friend's only focus, was Helga. Nothing else going on seemed to matter, for whatever reason other than whatever had been said and done the last time the two had interacted with one another. "Yeah man, whatever you need." It really worried him though. It worried him that she might have snipped the last little strand of hope that Arnold had, without even knowing it.
Two Days Prior.
P.S. Never underestimate the importance of a good reputation.
Helga's watery eyes scrawled over the last sentence of one of the most infuriating and heartbreaking things she'd ever had the displeasure of spending time reading. The only thing she could do was crumple it into the tiniest ball her hands had the strength to, cursing him loudly as she harshly threw it into the bin before wiping eyes.
They had begun to leak such pain again. Against her will. It seemed like nothing in her life was under her control anymore. Even herself. Thinking about it made the bile practically choke her with it's stranglehold. There she was, completely done with him and he was still finding new ways to make her cry. Still finding new ways to reach a depth of anger she'd never thought she had.
Gone were the feelings of heart break and the foolishness over being hoodwinked, replaced by a rush of pure, white hot anger that she knew wasn't healthy to even remotely dwell in. Of everything, it was the intimacy of his manipulation that was weighing her down in a pool of infuriated vexation. She knew that it didn't make any sense. The whole entire situation she'd been in for months was completely fucked up. But something about having her body manipulated really sliced her right to the bone.
She'd had a bad feeling when she'd found the prescription bottle in his car, but the comical part was that she had been unwilling to think of him as capable of toying with her that way. The man was a Goddamn serial killer, and she had given him the benefit of the doubt, because for some reason, in her fucked up logic, raping and killing women wasn't nearly as diabolical as drugging somebody.
Her plight was no where near as awful as the other things he had done. She knew that. She wasn't out there trying to pretend that things were harder for her than the rest. Just like she'd had to catch herself on so many occasions about being angry with Monica for having an affair with him. She was missing and no matter what she'd done, she didn't deserve what had probably happened to her.
Helga just felt like she would never ever be able to get out from underneath his shadow. And still, even after everything, she'd failed to understand what the point was. What had been the Goddamn point of going through the trouble of doing what he did to her? To shut her up? Had he become tired of her being a distraction and decided to nip it in the bud so she'd be occupied?
She supposed his solution had worked, because she had been none-the-wiser, occupied by the child she'd desired, and apparently too distracted to notice anything else he was up to.
But she found her questions running deeper as her mind kept pulling the never ending thread.
Why had he really picked her that night so long ago? Why had he purposefully wrecked her relationship? There were a thousand other girls that would have willingly gone along with him and she had to be the one. He went through all the trouble, and then doing what he did and for what? What had there been in it for him? Had he gotten some kicks and giggles out of manipulating her?
Then, to top it all off, he had the audacity to claim that it was because he fell in love with her.
Talk about adding insult to injury. What a lying, manipulative asshole.
It had been her fault too, and she knew it. She'd allowed herself to get involved in something that was going to cause drama no matter what, and truly, she really hated herself for it, now more than ever.
As un-apologetically angry about everything as she was, with life, with him, and with herself for the myriad of reasons that she wished to stop dwelling on, it didn't make her lingering questions any less frustrating. She was partially at fault for being in the situation she was in, she knew that, but the only answer her over burdened mind could rationalize was that it had all been part of the same fucked up game.
Arnold had just fucked with everybody. That's all she could figure.
She realized, once again, that she needed to stop throwing herself a pity party. Life had given her one God awful situation to deal with, nobody would argue about that, but she knew she should feel damn grateful that she was at least still around to be angry about it.
That he'd gotten caught before anything could happen to her.
She could be dead, and the thought never ceased to send a chill down her spine. Instead, what she did have was her life, a story, trust problems, a house that nobody wanted, and a child that nobody could figure out why she wanted, which was a hell of a lot more than any of his other victims had.
She also had a fatiguing mess that she may never have any answers for, and perhaps she needed to put more of her energy into accepting that sometimes...there just weren't any answers. If there truly were, then maybe people like Arnold would be stopped before they could start.
Unfortunately, it was going to take a little while for her to accept defeat in her quest for understanding. In the meantime, she didn't feel like grappling with the burning hole inside of her anymore. She had to get out and clear her head before her stress level sent her into complete combustion. Or worse...premature labor. Neither of which she had the mental strength to deal with at that time. Without so much as a second thought, she grabbed her fob from the wall hanger, before heading into the garage, opting to go for a nice drive to attempt to forget about things.
Forget about him.
And that's exactly what she did, choosing to let all four hundred and fourteen horses under the hood of her car entertain her as she whipped through the winding roads of the thick, tree lined country side, hoping that she didn't pass a cop. She knew she shouldn't have been driving like it was her profession. After all, she had a responsibility other than herself. Yet, she just loved the adrenaline rush and chemical distraction it brought to her troubled mind was an added bonus. It wasn't until she felt Hunter start to really squirm, no doubt because of her elevated heart beat, that she backed off the accelerator and decided to just cruise for a bit and take in the early winter country-side.
She loved the north-western scenery, particularly that time of the year. Had it not been for the fact that she looked like she was smuggling a pumpkin, felt like she was carrying an elephant, and had a set of hips that felt like they were about to crack apart as Hunter began to descend, she'd definitely be spending some time hiking. Nature was meditation.
It was tranquil.
By the time she pulled back into her garage, Arnold's grip on her mental health had been pried about as loose as was reasonably expected. She was sort of over it. He did some shady things to her? Fine. She already had a cart full of trust issues because of him anyway. Forever single level trust issues if she were being honest, but she knew that already. Besides, what was one more log on that fire anyway?
Toss away! Burn, baby, burn.
Her anger had subsided, but her cynicism was flaring from the ashes the wildfire had left. Something she had a bad habit of falling into when she had emotionally lost control of a situation. But she went about the rest of her night as if nothing were wrong, ordering some take-out, vegging out on the couch with her dogs and watching a movie.
As well as she thought she'd done about not thinking about it anymore, she couldn't quite shake the feeling that something was still wrong. Subconsciously anyway.
There was plenty wrong, of course, but she couldn't quite put her finger on what else was bothering her. It was something different. Something that had entirely nothing to do with anything that he had done.
Despite the fact that she apparently hadn't been observant enough to notice she was living with a serial killer, she actually did pay attention to details. It was what made her so good at her job. But even still, it wasn't until about 7:30 that night, while she was laying in bed, trying to go to sleep but being thwarted at every turn by an inability to get comfortable—a lot of it because Hunter wouldn't stop moving, or having hiccups—that the puzzle pieces finally clicked into place and the sentence, 'This may be the end for me, but it isn't the end for you.' floated through her mind like a haunting whisper. She could hear it in his voice no less.
It was ominous.
That was what was bothering her. The ominous tone that the later portion of that letter had taken on. It was an apology, then an explanation, then finally a goodbye capped with a riddle of a P.S.
The goodbye felt...permanent.
Sure, him going to prison for life or even to death row was a pretty permanent solution. And maybe he had actually cobbled together a single thread of decency in that black soul of his and really was saying he'd never contact her again. She very much feared having to deal with him continuing to contact her just like Lisa Kirk had had to deal with Jeremy's father. Yet, those perfectly reasonable explanations didn't give her soul the satisfaction it sought. The sentence continued to trouble her because deep down, it felt like it was more than just that.
It read like he would never be able to contact her again.
The final goodbye.
Death?
Again, her emotions were awash with turbulence at the speculation of him doing something to harm himself. And again, it shouldn't have been something that bothered her. If he decided to evade justice and off himself, then Hillwood, as well as the rest of the world would breath a sigh of relief knowing that the doctor of death was gone from the world forever. No longer would any threat of him exist.
Yet, the thought didn't bring her any sort of comfort at all. Instead she was driven from her bed by the discomfort of the pooling feeling of sorrow that hadn't any business being present in her rolodex of emotions.
Helga wandered from her room and into his old office, the last bastion and catch for all of his stuff that she'd cast out of the rest of her house. Much like his vehicle, she hadn't decided what to do with all of it. The room was also her library of sorts. She went there to squash the pesky thoughts by picking up a book and doing something she hadn't done in a few months at that point: get lost in a story. Thumbing through a couple new books that she had, but hadn't had time to get around to reading, she selected one before heading back to her bed to try to make a night of it. However, as diligently as she tried at being consumed by the story, it ultimately proved to be an unfit match for the locust of thoughts eating away her concentration.
She found herself staring at the paragraphs of pages, reading them over and over, while she wallowed in the stormy sea of distracted conflict for another hour before, once again, curiosity and frustration finally got the better of her, and she found herself putting down the book in favor of doing something completely out of character for her. Especially in those times.
Picking up the phone and calling Gerald.
Part of her prayed that he wouldn't pick up. She really didn't want to talk to him. At all. But, she knew he would because of how bizarre it was that she was calling him. He probably thought that something was badly wrong based on how concerned his voice sounded when he said, "Helga?" And she imagined that Phoebe was probably anxiously standing not too far away from him.
Helga quietly sighed as she laid the tomb on her bedside table, circulating her jaw around a nano moment before responding with a polite, "Hey Gerald."
"Everything...okay?" He hung the question in the air and she could just hear him making steady eye contact with his wife the entire time he asked.
"Peachy," She dribbled in the sarcasm before she could really catch herself. She hadn't any hard feelings towards Gerald, but they were on completely opposite sides of the fence those days and didn't see eye to eye on anything. "Listen I uh...I finally read that letter...that you gave me. From Arnold."
"And?"
His audible irritation annoyed her, even if it were her fault for being so cryptic, "And...it was pretty fucked up." She wasn't really sure of what else to say, or even how to ask him what was on truly on her mind. At the same time, Gerald had no idea what Arnold had written her, or at least she assumed that he probably didn't. She had no idea what they talked about and what they didn't. She just knew from Phoebe that he was still talking to him.
She heard the man sighed, making his irritation with her very known before clapping back with, "You called to tell me that?"
Helga rolled her eyes, "No, I didn't. I called because it was also kind of...depressing and I—"
"—Well, I imagine it would be. He's sitting in jail for something he didn't do."
"Look, I didn't know if he had talked to you at all about it."
"Not really, no. Other than he was adamant that you got it."
"You don't think he would...do something...to himself," She finally asked, ignoring Gerald's smart ass remarks, and open attempts at making her feel bad about it, "Do you?"
"And why do you care?" Gerald harshly remarked, "You've made it perfectly clear, that you don't have any faith in him, so why the hell are you suddenly so concerned about him harming himself?"
"I don't know, Gerald, maybe I care about justice," Helga meanly growled back with the first reasonable retort she could think of, "Maybe I don't want that bastard taking the easy way out of this if that's what his plan is."
"Oh so now you care about justice?" Gerald retorted angrily, "You abandoned an innocent man, and cut off his lawyer, because it was easier for you to do than to stick by him. So, you know what? You can fuck right off with that justice bullshit, Helga."
"Oh fuck you, Gerald," She spat back, "Get off your high horse and put yourself in someone else's Goddamn shoes once in awhile." She wanted to yell at him for being such an idiot and for knowing Arnold's past and never saying anything. It almost felt like he was an accomplice in jacking up her entire life. She didn't though. It would only succeed at muddying the waters and make her sound more bitter than she wanted.
"Grow up. He's my friend too. Only I don't run around acting like I'm suffering more than everybody else, like you do."
"You aren't suffering like I am because you believe him. Take a dose—not even a dose, a sip of reality and then come talk to me."
"Again, what does any of this matter? You're done with him, remember? If he kills himself, I would think that would be a best case scenario for you, wouldn't it? So it'll make it easier to pretend he didn't exist to your kid, right?"
Hmm...so it was apparent to her that Gerald probably knew most of everything regarding the last conversation she'd had with Arnold, and as angry as that made her, she refused to get bogged down in it, choosing to instead sneer cynically, "Whatever," She replied in a scoff of a voice. "There's still a girl out there miss—"
"You know what, Helga?" Gerald quickly cut her off, unwilling to listen to anymore of her pathetic excuses for what he was starting to suspect was a guilty conscious, "I think that you are worried about it, but not for some bullshit reason like justice." Helga went to cop back at him with her own nasty remark but the insult lost steam before the words could get past her tongue as her brain really began laser focusing in on why exactly she did care. Death would have been justice for her, "I think deep down, you know that all of this is a giant load of shit. You know he isn't capable of those things, but I think you've dug your heels in so hard on him being this boogie man that you are incapable of admitting that you fucked up." Gerald sighed loudly on the other end, "And yes, for your information, I am worried about him being suicidal. His mind has been in a dark place lately because of the things that you said to him."
"What I said? Bullshit. Bull-fucking-shit."
"You and that baby are the only two things that have kept his spirits alive, and you took that away from him. He was so sure, so sure that you would eventually come around. And you know what, if God forbid, something does happen to him and it comes out later that he was innocent all along, which it will, you're going to have to live with that, and you're going to have to explain that to your daughter."
Helga sighed, setting her jaw, feeling so burnt up with anger and frustration again that she could hardly think, "Yeah...well you have a good night Gerald," Was all she could formulate to reply with.
"Told you some harsh truth and now you can't get off the phone with me fast enough. Typical."
"You didn't tell me anything," She clapped back, feeling so childish the minute it left her mouth because for whatever reason, she was feeling like she was being backed into a corner that shouldn't have been there to begin with, "I'm not the bad guy here."
"Okay, I guess you just have an abundance of time to make phone calls to find out shit that you claim you don't care about."
"Because I'm tired of surprises!"
"I think you've got a guilty conscious."
Helga snorted at the accusation, rolling her eyes so hard it almost made her dizzy, "You're a fucking idiot."
"You know, for the life of me, I don't know why it had to be you," Gerald chastised. It wasn't his intention to deliberately be as mean as possible. Her own insults weren't at all bothersome to him, because he knew how she was. Truly, he liked Helga. Not a whole lot as of late, given the circumstance, but they had been cool before. He literally just wanted to get a rise out of her, even though he knew it was the last thing he should have been doing to her, given her current state, "He just had to pick you."
"Oh just shut the fuck up." Gerald could sense the defensiveness in her voice, despite her best attempt to muddle it with irritation. There was a nerve there, and he'd figured that if he poked it just right, he could get a reaction. "If you've got some stupid-ass point, make it."
However, his intention wasn't just to sit on the phone and continue to aggravate her, he had better things to do than argue with the likes of Helga Pataki, who was the very definition of a brick wall. Tiredly, he sighed and gave her a more toned down but honest take of his previous jab, "I just always thought that you were the best thing to ever happen to him. And you know why? Because I knew you weren't after anything more than his company. Any of those other girls, yeah I would have expected this," He paused for a moment before admitting, "I guess I just expected better from you is all."
Helga felt what small amount of accelerant left in her ignite with that. She was so angry by what seemed to always be expected of her. Never him. Her. So damn tired of it that she snapped, "What about what's expected of him, huh? Let's stop for a moment and pretend he isn't a serial killer. He still manipulated me into a relationship with him. But you already knew that didn't you, Gerald? Or how about this then: He drugged me! Did you know that? None of that is okay!"
On the other end Gerald let a tiny moment of silence slip by before quietly saying, "Helga..."
She felt her stomach turn. He didn't have to come out and say the exact words for her to know that he'd known about it all. His meek little use of her name said everything she needed to know, "Goddamn you people."
"I didn't know anything about it until everything was already done, and I told him that I thought it was fucked up. He had his reasons I guess, but none of that has anything to do the fact that an innocent man is sitting jail for things he didn't do."
Had that been what Arnold meant by 'never underestimate the importance of a good reputation?' He was shady but not that shady? Probably, and she didn't want to hear any of it.
The stubborn side of her truly wanted to continue fighting him for the sake of keeping up with expectations, but instead she was rapidly finding herself too emotionally depleted to do more than exhaustively plead, "How much am I expected to suspend my disbelief?" It sounded pitiful to her ears, how weak and desperate her voice came off, but she'd been so angry for such a long time that day that she just couldn't sustain it anymore.
"Look...I know that you're in an especially stressful situation right now," Gerald replied in a much more calm voice, "And...you can bite my head off all you want for saying this but...I know you're scared of...all the unknowns right now. And I think it's causing you to think little too much about everything when you should just be listening to your gut. Now, whether you want to admit it or not, you and I both know that deep down, nothing about this situation feels right."
"I'm not scared of anything, Gerald. I'm a grown woman. I can take care of myself. What I know are the facts. There was a girl in my storage unit. His ex-girlfriend was under my patio. My house was a landmine of evidence. How can I ignore that?" She said in a level voice, surprising even herself, "How can you ignore that?"
"How do I ignore it? Because it doesn't feel right. You mean to tell me that a man so smart, that he lived an entirely secret life for over a decade, and methodically killed these girls was stupid enough to leave, literally, boxes of evidence just lying around? Stupid enough to leave a girl in a freezer in your storage unit? A unit he knew you might go to? Stupid enough to bury bodies on his own property knowing that you have dogs? Hunting dogs at that." Gerald gave a hollow chuckle at the complete absurdity of it all, "Not you, not my wife and not a single other person in Hillwood is going to convince me that he is anything other than the fall guy."
The last bit of Gerald's rant was what interested Helga the most. She knew that he'd blindly run around having Christ like faith in his best friend, but she'd never realized that he'd tried to start justifying his position on the matter, "So, you think someone is framing him?" It sounded just as stupid when she said it aloud as it did thinking it.
"Yes. I do."
"Tell me why. Tell me who out there would spend time doing such a thing?" She asked, though it probably came out more as a light demand, "We're talking years, here Gerald, years."
"I don't know," Gerald admitted with a defeated gust of a sigh, "But it doesn't feel right."
Present.
Jeremy had been to the exact outlook that they had tracked up into on quite a few occasions in his life. Helga had enjoyed hiking, liking to blow off stress by lacing up her boots and taking a long stroll through nature. She called it active meditation. Him, not so much. Personally, hiking was one of those things he could take or leave. To him it was boring, and there was only so much nature he could look at before tiring of it. He had little doubt that she'd brought Arnold there too, after all, it was a trail easily accessed from the Pataki's cabin home, and in turn, that was why they were stomping through. Because the blonde had some knowledge of it.
As much as he disliked hiking, he appreciated the outlook. It had been the only neat spot of the entire trail, in his opinion. Even if it gave him severe vertigo. Jeremy Kirk was not one for heights, and staring over a ridge that could spell his demise should his foot slip was not his brand of entertainment. He pulled his mind out of it's hike through memory lane to gaze at Arnold staring out over the mountain valley, looking suspiciously resolved of something. A content resolve that began to sit uncomfortably in Jeremy's gut.
"Is this it?" Sid asked after a moment, looking around the clearing for anything out of the ordinary appearing.
"Yeah."
"Where is she?"
Arnold stared straight ahead, eyes not breaking from the majestic valley for a few moments more before he took a deep breath and tilted his head at Sid.
And smiled.
Just smiled.
"Check the tree line straight back," The captive blonde quietly said, watching Sid's attention divert to the forest behind them, snapping his fingers at the two deputies and pointing to the area. Jeremy seemed to the be only one uninterested in the confession that Arnold had softly spoken before them, God, and the entire forest.
His attention was instead focused on the situation slowly unfolding before him. Once the others had wandered back into the tree cover, Arnold turned again to face the outlook, looking like a man at peace, a man back in control of things, before pushing himself up from the log and walking towards the edge. It was at that moment, that Jeremy finally confirmed something that the others had failed to pick up on. That Arnold hadn't wanted to go there to show them a body. He wanted to go there to do something desperate.
The dark headed detective instinctively drew his gun and yelled, "Not one more step, Arnold!" He could feel the air around them get thick and almost all of the sounds that had been contently fluttering around them get sucked into a void of dead stillness. Arnold dropped his head down to his chest, as the other men turned, seemingly contemplating his next steps before continuing to walk forward, picking up his pace.
Jeremy found himself in a real predicament at that point. A threat of being shot wasn't going to stop a guy purposefully heading towards the edge of a fatal drop off. Aiming for a limb wasn't realistic in anything other than a movie. He had a choice to make, just as Arnold had. From his side-eye, he could see his fellow officers drawing their guns, and without much else of a thought, he dropped his gun, aggressively motioning for them to stop as he began to sprint towards Arnold screaming, "Don't shoot! It's what he wants!"
He tackled him, body slamming him down to the cold hard earth, and surprisingly, Arnold went without much of a fight. "What the hell?!" Sid yelled, running back out of the tree line.
"It's a goose chase!" Jeremy replied, harshly yanking Arnold back up before marching him as far away from the drop off as he could, "Isn't that right?" He asked the tall blonde guy in a seething tone. Arnold hadn't any reply for him, and even if he did, he wouldn't give that fucker the satisfaction of an answer.
Sid didn't say anything else as he watched his friend hand off their prisoner to the other two officers, before going to look for his gun in the leaves, "Take him back down the mountain," He said as he re-holstered his gun.
Once back at the cabin, Sid and Jeremy opted to throw Arnold into the accompanying SUV that was traveling with them, versus their own. For one, they could chain him to something, seeing as their was exactly equipped for most prisoner transportation and secondly, neither cared to be in his presence for the trip home. To say that Sidney Moretti was pissed was an understatement, and that was the rarest of emotions for him. He slammed the door so hard the glass rattled as he climbed into the passenger seat, "That piece of..." He angrily exhaled, "Made us waste all of this time!"
His partner quietly started the car and pulled out onto the road to head down the mountain, "He was trying to jump off that ledge. Or get one of us to shoot him first," He stated the obvious, "I had a bad feeling when he took us to that particular spot."
"You've been there?"
Jeremy nodded, "Helga likes to hike," He explained before glancing at his rattled partner, "I knew exactly what he was planning when he smirked at you."
Sid sighed and leaned his head into his open hand, propping his elbow up on the window as he tried to think through the headache that was forming. He had a million fucking questions after going out of a trip that was suppose to have all of the answers, "I don't understand why he went through all of the trouble of going back in forth about getting the death penalty removed if he gave up Davenport, if he just wanted to, to off himself anyway," Sid dropped his arm and shook his head before staring at his friend, "I believed him! The D.A. believed him!"
"You're talking about a guy who has made a living playing games with people," Jeremy began reasoning back, "He knew if he made the request authentic sounding enough, it would ensure that he got to the outlook. It worked," He then shook his head, "Quite frankly all of this happened because the fucker probably didn't have the guts to hang himself with a bed sheet."
Sid sighed, "Back to square one."
"Back...to square one."
"This is so incredibly cute, Helga." Phoebe gushed as she walked into Hunter's room, "Oh my gosh."
"Yeah...I surprised myself with it," The blonde admitted as she leaned against the door frame, eyeing her friend as she wandered around the decor
"Boys aren't nearly as fun," Phoebe turned and smiled before shrugging, "No real good decor and nowhere near as cute of clothes."
Helga chuckled, "Honestly, that probably more my speed." She wasn't a girly girl. Had never been. She had lucked out and been blessed with extremely manageable hair which made her very low maintenance. Had she not though, she'd probably just rock a ponytail every single day of her life. She knew how to get dressed up and make an impression, she just tried to keep it to a minimum. The thought of a little girl running around, wanting to do girly things was a scary prospect to her, even if she'd been nothing but thrilled at the idea, "I've always kind of thought I was more suited for being a boy mom, but...I guess nature thought differently."
"You'll be fine. You're named her Hunter," Phoebe quietly laughed, rolling her brown eyes, "If she doesn't turn out just as rough and tumble as you I'll be shocked."
Helga chuckled and stepped back out into the hallway to allow her friend to exit the room before shutting the door to prevent the two four legged pests of the house from getting in and dirtying up the rug. The two women walked back down the stairs and into the kitchen where Helga fetched her guest a soda, seeing as she didn't currently have any wine in the house.
Phoebe took note of all the pictures of Arnold piled up on the corner of one of the counter tops as she popped the top on the can she'd been handed, "What are you doing with those?"
Looking up from the bottle of water she was ratcheting the cap off of, Helga's eyes followed her friends to the pile of dashed hopes and dreams she'd stacked but had yet to throw somewhere. "I don't know yet," She flipped the cap around between her fingers, "I should make a bon-fire out of the photos but...that feels kind of psycho."
"I suppose it wouldn't be any different than hitting a delete button on your phone," Phoebe reckoned as she took a sip of soda, "More dramatic." The two young woman shared a chuckle before she sighed, "Sorry, if Gerald set you off the other night."
Helga waved her off, "I called him. I was asking for it."
"He means well and...he has his points but..." Phoebe trailed off as she shook her head, not exactly wanting to admit to her fragile friend that she was starting to agree with certain points her husband was making. She didn't want her to feel like she was alone, but as the dust was settling, she was beginning to have her own small doubts and questions outside of Gerald's influence, "I think he forgets who he's talking to sometimes." Helga disagreed with that assessment in its entirety, though she wouldn't make it vocal. Gerald was well aware of the things he said to her, "Anyway, I don't think you should burn all of that. If anything just store it."
"It's not like I'll ever want to look at them again," Helga leaned forward on the island bar as best as she could, "And I'd rather eat the embarrassment of telling Hunter that I don't know who her father is versus her accidentally finding this crap and start asking questions about him."
"I suppose," Phoebe replied, though the only thing she could think about was how Gerald would never let that happen. Not as long as his belief in Arnold's innocents remained strong.
A Day Later
It wasn't exactly the text she'd expected to get mid-morning as she was standing in line for a decaf coffee at a shop across from a job site. But there it was, as cut and dry as could be, 'Arnold attempted to kill himself yesterday.' From Jeremy Kirk of all people.
She should have felt vindicated that her bad feeling ended up being right on target, but what bloomed instead was the amalgamation of dread and sadness. It was such an out of the blue feeling that it nearly left her breathless, but as usual, curiosity got the best of her, 'What happened?' And it pissed her off because she didn't even know why she cared.
'Took us up to the cabin to show us a body. Tried to jump off the outlook. Or get shot trying to. Had to tackle his ass.' Helga nearly recoiled from the shudder of relief that blanketed over her at the knowledge that Arnold hadn't physically harmed himself. It was damn near nausea inducing.
She couldn't wait for the flood of hormones she'd been held hostage by for months to fuck right off. She was sure that that was what caused her to continue struggle with her feelings. There wasn't any other explanation of why she continued have any semblance of care.
Because Gerald explanation was beyond absurd.
She didn't feel guilty.
One Week Later.
Sid hurriedly ran through his bedroom, half naked from having to hop out of the shower at the sound of his work phone ringing away on his dresser top. Quickly wrapping the towel snugly around his waist he quickly dried his hands and snatched the device to his ear, "This is detective Moretti."
"Sidney Moretti?" The silky vibration of an older man asked across the air waves.
"I go by Sid, but yeah. How can I help you?"
"Fair enough. Detective Don Jacobs. I'm over in Kitsap county. Listen, you submitted a DNA profile in CODIS a few weeks back," Sid felt his eyes widen as his eyebrows rose up his forehead. Given everything that had happened in the woods, he'd completely forgotten he'd told Jeremy to get Nina to upload it to the database. Something that should have been done all along, "I'm calling because it's a match to one that I submitted several years ago."
The detective's breath hitched, "Seriously?"
"As the sky is blue."
"That DNA came off of a working girl tied to the Shortman case."
"Yep, Doctor Death. I've been following it pretty closely." So had the rest of Washington State. As excited as Sid wanted to be about it, there was a logical explanation for it all. Walking over to his bed, he flopped down down on the edge, feeling the excitement he'd so quickly been enveloped in slowly ebbing away just as his beautifully naked wife stepped into the bathroom door way, dripping water every which a way without much care while giving him the lifted eyebrow question as she perched a hand on her hip.
Sid held his index finger up and mouthed that he'd be a minute before saying, "Don I'm going to play devils advocate here, and say that perhaps we just have a popular John."
The older sounded man gave a hearty chuckle, "Well...here's the thing. This DNA came off of a secretary that was found murdered in the wood shed of her boss, along with four other girls who's bones were found littering his property. Now, I'm not a man that subscribes to wild conspiracies. I'm a firm believer in Occam's razor, however, it seems a little more than just coincidence that this DNA profile has shown up on two different crimes involving serial killings."
A/N: Oh, snap...are we taking another veering plot turn here?