[A/N: Hey all! It's a miracle! I updated quickly! Can't guarantee I can update this frequently on a regular basis because of school BUT I will do my best this semester :) I'm hoping to actually finish the story soon haha. But we do have quite a bit of material to cover first.

Anyway! Let's continue on this mysterious journey!

Also, I edited the fic description to make it clear that I have taken the storylines of Gone Girl, Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and Seven Pounds, mixed them together and added a sprinkle of my own style to create this hybrid. If it wasn't clear before, it is now! That being said, I don't own any of those movies, nor do I own Hey Arnold.

So without further ado, please enjoy! And review! :)]

Present Day

The officers who had arrested him, followed by Detective Sullivan, escorted Arnold into an interrogation room once they arrived at the police station. It was a small, rectangular room with grey walls and the only furniture were a table and two chairs positioned across from one another. Arnold was instructed to sit in one of them and Detective Sullivan sat across from him while the two officers exited the room. There was a mirror behind him that Arnold had no doubt was a two-way mirror and that those officers, if not more people, would be watching from outside.

"So, Mr. Shortman," Sullivan breathed as she placed a folder and a small notebook on top of her side of the table. "Let's see if we can get this story straight, hmm?"

She opened the folder and began pulling out pictures of his living room on the day he called 911 as well as one of the hammer from their toolkit. He recognized the notebook and instantly remembered it was the same one he often had seen Lila writing in. He'd wondered what she was writing but never wanted to infringe on her privacy. That, and there were some times where he genuinely wasn't interested.

"I'm telling you, I didn't do anything to hurt Lila," Arnold pleaded calmly. "I would never," He paused, still stricken by the police's belief that Lila wasn't alive. "Are you sure she's… she's…"

"Dead?" Sullivan supplied bluntly. "We have reason to believe so, Arnold. Look at this," She pulled a photo out of the folder showing the large blood stain on their kitchen floor, lit up by the luminol test. "Look at all this blood she lost. You think she lost that peeling some damn potatoes?"

"No, of course not," Arnold replied, suppressing the frustration in his voice. "I-I just can't believe it," He stared at the picture, wide-eyed.

"Do you recognize this notebook?" Sullivan held it up and Arnold nodded. "This is your wife's diary, Arnold. Want me to read to you from her last entry?"

"Sure," Arnold replied.

"It's dated the night before you called us to report her missing. Quote, 'I confronted Arnold about the affair with Katie this afternoon. How could this man I loved for so many years betray me like this? We may have been having trouble but I never thought it would get to this point. He denied it at first but there was no way I could believe it. Rhonda is one of my closest friends and I know she didn't feel comfortable telling me that my husband was having an affair with her cousin –'"

Arnold's jaw dropped. "Her cousin?!" He exclaimed and suddenly all of Rhonda's snide comments seemed to make sense.

"Mr. Shortman –"

"No! I can't believe… and wait a minute, that never happened!" Arnold cried.

"You never had an affair?" Sullivan asked.

"I-I," Arnold grimaced. "I made a mistake. Once. But she didn't confront me the night before! I had no idea she even knew!"

"Let's continue, shall we?" Sullivan said, brushing him off. "It gets more interesting,"

"This is insane," Arnold breathed but the detective ignored him.

"'Once he realized I actually knew, he became angry. I've seen him upset, even mad, before but never like this. Maybe I shouldn't have pushed him to tell me the truth as hard as I did. He was trying to walk away from me but I wouldn't let him and that's when he hit me,'"

Arnold's eyed bulged but he fought the urge to yell out of anger or exasperation as that would only make him look worse.

"'I was so shocked and confused and upset. For the first time, I actually felt afraid of my husband of what he could do.'" Sullivan finished and closed the notebook.

"All of that is untrue," Arnold said simply, forcing himself to keep composure. "I don't know why she would say that but none of that happened, I swear," His face was fallen in a mixture of sadness and betrayal.

"Arnold, I'll be straight with you," Sullivan said, crossing her arms on the tabletop. "It doesn't look good. If you wanna do me the same courtesy and be straight with me, I might be able to help you out here," She shrugged. "Anything you're hiding or lying about, trust that we will find out about it,"

"I've told you the truth," Arnold said. "I'm not gonna talk about it anymore; I'm gonna wait for my lawyer,"

. . . . . . . .

Present Day

The following day, Helga and Rich went to the local newspaper office to see if they could find the collection of photos from the day Marguerite went missing. After Helga got shot yesterday, they'd both agreed that it would be best to spend the remainder of the day resting. Rich bandaged Helga's wound with gauze from a first aid kit under the bathroom sink and they'd spent the evening relaxing on the couch and watching TV. Helga was surprised at how comfortable Rich was able to make her feel, despite the circumstances. It'd been so long since she'd opened herself up to someone and while she was still somewhat guarded, she felt the most at ease she had in several years. He made he feel like she could relax and be happy, something she'd given up on long ago. No one had made her feel that way since Arnold and even though she felt guilty, she couldn't help enjoying it. To feel as though the weight that had been pressing down on her for years had finally lifted somewhat and she could breathe was a feeling she relished and greedily accepted.

"We must be extra careful after what happened yesterday," Rich said to Helga as they waited for the clerk who would be escorting them to the records room. The local paper's office was small but with multiple floors. There was a big front desk, behind which was a doorway the clerk had disappeared through moments ago to make sure the photo collection was still there. "I don't want anything to happen to you," He said, gently grazing the small of her back with his hand.

Helga fought down a blush at his touch, responding, "Do you think it was one of your family members?"

"Like Uncle Doug?" Rich turned to her, his dark brown eyes distracting her.

"Yeah," Helga said, staying on task. "I mean, your Aunt Natalie said he was out hunting. It doesn't take a genius to put two and two together,"

"True, but we don't know for sure if he was still out by then," Rich shrugged, weighing all options as best he could. "It was a few hours later; for all we know, he could've gone home by then and it could've been someone else. Or it also could've been a freak accident,"

"Are you defending him?" Helga turned and glared.

"No," Rich shook his head. "I just want to make sure we're taking everything into consideration. If it was intentional, we need to be careful. If it was an accident, we still need to be careful because we don't know what else may be going on that we don't know about and if we start throwing out accusations, things could get worse before they get better,"

Helga huffed. "Whatever,"

"Sorry to keep you both waiting," The clerk, a man in his thirties with shaggy brown hair, suddenly appeared from the doorway behind the front desk. "Come on back,"

The clerk led Helga and Rich past the front desk and into the back of the building. They followed him down a small wooden staircase that led into the basement of the building with dozens of shelves, each containing several boxes of film.

"This is where we keep our older records," The clerk said as he guided them down a particular aisle. "There's a light board in the next aisle you can use to view the negatives," He said as he pulled down one of the boxes. "I believe this is the date you're looking for. Fourth of July, 1971, right?"

"Yeah," Rich nodded as Helga looked across the various boxes surrounding them. It was a good thing they kept the records organized because she couldn't imagine having to find this collection on her own.

"Then I think this is what you're looking for," The clerk said as he handed the box to Rich. "There's a computer with scanner and printer over by the light board in case you find anything you want to keep,"

"Sounds great," Rich said as he and Helga began to walk to the next aisle. "Thanks for letting us do this,"

"It's not a problem," The clerk shrugged. "At this point, it's public record," And with that he disappeared up the stairs, leaving Helga and Rich alone to sort through the photos.

The two of them spent the next couple hours sifting through dozens of film negatives, setting them on the light board so they could better see the images. The whole process became incredibly tedious rather quickly until Helga found a particular set of negatives that caught her eye.

"Rich, look at this," She said, squinting at the tiny image. "Do you see?"

Rich leaned over her shoulder, also squinting through his glasses. "Even with glasses, you're eyes are better than mine,"

"I think it's Marguerite," Helga said, turning around in the swivel chair and rolling over to the other side of the desk where the computer and scanner/printer sat. "Let's see," She murmured as she inserted the negatives strip and waited for it to scan. The process took a few minutes but once the images came up on the computer, there was no denying it was Marguerite. There were six images included on this strip and Helga separated them so they could view each one at a time. Rich stood behind her, hands on the back of her chair, as she clicked through the images in succession.

"Are you seeing what I'm seeing?" Helga asked, her eyes glued to the screen. As she clicked through the images, she could see Marguerite first looking at the parade, then turning to face the other side of the street, her face contorted with concern, before she quickly turned around and walked away from the street.

"Something scared her," Rich said thoughtfully.

"Or someone," Helga corrected. "I think whoever she was looking at could be the person who knows what happened to her,"

Rich hummed to himself and nodded. "I think you may be right…"

An eerie feeling washed over Helga and she got chills. "For all we know, Marguerite could be looking at her killer in these pictures," She breathed.

The two of them were silent for a moment, staring in awe and deep thought at the photos on the screen, until Rich broke their silence.

"Wait a minute, look at that," He said, pointing at the screen. "There's a couple behind her taking pictures in the same direction,"

Helga's eyebrows raised. "You're right," She said. "You think maybe they got some pictures of our guy?"

"Or girl," Rich added.

"Whatever," Helga rolled her eyes. "You get my point,"

"They could," Rich said, answering her question.

"Alright then," Helga said, leaning back in the chair. "We've gotta figure out who they are, find them, and see if they still have their pictures from this day. Then we'll see who's on the other side of the street and maybe figure out who was scaring Marguerite,"

"It's gonna be a long day," Rich breathed.

"Quit your whining," Helga snapped playfully over her shoulder.

"Oh, I'm not complaining," Rich said with a smirk and put his hand on her shoulder.

. . . . . . . .

It was late evening by the time Helga and Rich headed back to the cottage. They'd managed to find other pictures of the same couple in and around what appeared to be a company van marked 'Albertson & Sons'. This was a local construction company based on the other side of the island and they decided they would check it out tomorrow.

The sun had already set by the time they got to the cottage and while the day's weather had been comfortable, a chill had fallen over the island once the sun went down.

Helga and Rich approached the front door and immediately Helga noticed something was off. The lock had been tampered with and she walked a bit faster, opening the door and flipping on the light.

"Someone's been here," Helga said as she and Rich surveyed the room. They'd left the boxes of Marguerite's belongings out in the living area as well as their contents and Helga could tell they'd been moved around. Several pictures that had been splayed across the table had been moved and Helga started to feel anxious.

"Where's the journal?" She asked.

"It's in my room," Rich answered, quickly dispelling at least some of Helga's anxiety. "I was looking at those names and numbers again last night trying to figure out what they could mean,"

Helga stalked into Rich's room and he followed on her heel. "It's in the side table drawer," He said and she yanked it open, retrieving the book.

"Okay," Rich said. "Someone doesn't want us to know something,"

"Doi," Helga said and Rich smirked.

"Haven't heard you say that in a while,"

Helga rolled her eyes but couldn't help a small grin. "Oh, grow up. Seriously though, we need to be careful,"

"Well, hold on," Rich said, pulling his cell phone out of his pocket. "Let me check and make sure it wasn't my grandpa or something,"

"Okay…" Helga said doubtfully and walked into the other room, opening up to the page with the names and numbers. "Magda 30112; Sara 32016… Sara 32016…" Helga murmured under her breath as she stared at the page before she was suddenly struck with a thought and her eyes bulged. "Oh shit!" She exclaimed. "Rich!"

Rich appeared from the hall, having just hung up the phone. "Grandpa wasn't here," He said as he slipped his cell phone back into his pocket. "I'll call Ronald first thing in the morning and ask him to have security cameras set up around the perimeter of the cottage,"

"That's great," Helga said though she was clearly consumed with her epiphany. "William said Marguerite was religious, right?"

"Yeah," Rich nodded curiously.

"Could these numbers be referencing bible verses?" She asked.

"Let me see," Rich said and Helga turned the book to him, waiting as he said the names and numbers to himself under his breath. "They might be,"

"What if she was leaving some sort of message?" Helga wondered aloud. "What if this is some kind of clue she left before she disappeared?"