[A/N: Hey guys! Another chapter for ya and this one's longer! Yay! We're getting closer and closer! I'm really happy that you guys seem to be enjoying the story! Please remember to review and send me any of your thoughts, predictions, or questions! I love hearing them and I want feedback on how you think the story is going.

Thanks again!

D/C: I don't own Hey Arnold]

Arnold drove Helga to the grave site on the day of Rich's funeral. She'd been released from the hospital the day prior and since coming back to Concordia, Arnold had rented a motel room at the edge of the mainland as well as a car to get around. He'd briefly updated Brainy and Gerald on what was going on, much to their chagrin and concern, however, each of them reluctantly offered their support. They didn't understand what he was doing or why but being that it was Arnold, they trusted that he would do what was right, even if it didn't seem to make sense at the time.

It was a stormy day with off-and-on mists of rain and an overcast sky. Against the muted grey of the clouds and the leaf-less trees, the grass seemed greener as Helga, Arnold, and the Bauer family stood outside and waited for the final ceremony to begin. There had been a viewing a couple hours prior but William had insisted that both the viewing and the ceremony be private affairs, including only Helga and her guest in those who were invited to attend.

They were seated under a big black tent with Rich's casket in front of them, prepared to be lowered into the earth. The metal folding chair Helga sat in was uncomfortable but her mind was spinning such that she wasn't able to focus on very much. She'd cried a few times during the viewing and only reluctantly looked at Rich's still form once. She fluttered in and out of focus, her mind and eyes paying attention to everything and nothing at once while she was in this numb state. Arnold's arm was draped comfortingly around the back of her chair but even that experience seemed so far away. The words of the pastor seemed to be whispers and the final words from a few of Rich's family members, including his parents, sounded like lost echoes, far away and inaudible.

Helga finally came back to attention when she realized everyone around her was starting to get up and she heard Arnold gently coax, "Come on," His hand tentatively touched her shoulder. "Are you alright?"

Her expression was blank as she gave a small nod and stood up.

"Helga," William approached her as most of the other attendees had already begun their trek back to the parking lot. "May I speak with you a moment?"

Arnold looked to Helga for guidance as to whether he should stay or go and she nodded toward his rental car. "I'll meet you at the car in a minute,"

"Okay," Arnold agreed, nodding respectfully to William as he left Helga's side. "I'm very sorry for your loss, Mr. Bauer," He said and William shook his hand, "Thank you,"

Helga watched as Arnold walked to the mahogany sedan he'd rented, his hands tucked in his pockets and his shoulders hunched in the same blue, thoughtful stance he'd always seemed to possess. He hadn't brought many changes of clothes with him so he stuck out, with his faded blue jeans, dark red plaid button-down shirt, and the navy blue sweater he wore over it, in comparison to the dressier black clothing of the Bauers.

"Helga," William began. "Given everything that has transpired, I completely understand if you wish to discontinue the investigation of Marguerite's disappearance. I don't want any more people getting hurt," Helga could see the concern etched in the old man's forehead and the firm clench of his jaw. "Rich told me about the incident in the woods. You're lucky that bullet only grazed you – it could have been much worse,"

"I know," Helga said absently, still partially lost in thought. "I... um, I want to continue with the investigation, though," She shifted back and forth from one foot to the other, slightly uncomfortable. "For Rich,"

William breathed in deeply and let it out in a deep sigh. "You're certain?"

Helga nodded. "This meant a lot to him. I wanna see it through if I can,"

William registered the determined look on Helga's face, tucking his hands into his jacket pockets and looking around as wind whipped his grey hair. "You are a remarkable young lady," William smiled softly, sadly. "I understand why my grandson was smitten with you,"

Helga pursed her lips, unsure of how to respond. "I should get back to the cottage," She said after a moment, awkwardly changing the subject.

"Do what you need to do," William nodded to her as the two began to walk over to the parking lot. Many of the cars had already left and Arnold was standing outside of his rental, leaning against its side and focused on his smartphone. "Of course, you know I am available to answer any of your questions and if there's anything I can do to assist you, please let me know,"

Helga nodded politely. "Thank you," She said and the two parted ways once they got to the road.

Arnold looked up as Helga approached the car and slipped his phone into his pocket. "Everything okay?"

"Yeah," Helga said, opening the passenger side door. "Let's go back to the cottage,"

Arnold silently obliged and started walking over to the driver's door but Helga wasn't getting into the car. "What's up?" He asked, following her gaze over to the last two remaining vehicles in the lot.

"I'll be right back," Helga said and closed her door before walking over to the group standing outside of the cars. It was Adrienne talking to Rich's parents and Helga noted that Adrienne was wearing the same necklace she'd seen her wearing before – the one from Marguerite's picture.

The three of them stopped talking and looked up when Helga approached. "You must be Helga," Rich's mom said when she was in earshot.

"Thank you for being such a good friend to our son," Rich's father said genuinely.

Helga's face softened. "He was a good friend to me…" She said cryptically, unwilling to verbalize just how much Rich had meant to her over the short period of time they'd spent together. "I have a question though," She said, changing the subject and directing her attention to Adrienne who looked at her quizzically. "Where did you get that necklace?"

"Excuse me?" Adrienne said, confused.

"That necklace," Helga repeated. "It looks exactly like the one Marguerite was wearing on the day she disappeared,"

Adrienne's facial expression immediately became annoyed. "This is not Marguerite's necklace," She said. "Don't you think this is an inappropriate time and place to be throwing out accusations?"

Helga's skeptical expression never faltered and Rich's parents looked uncomfortable, though they kept quiet.

"If you must know," Adrienne sighed with irritation. "It belonged to a family friend, Brooke Wellington. She gave it to me years ago when she moved out of state – a few years after Marguerite disappeared,"

Helga paused in thought, processing this. There was Brooke's name again. If that had been her necklace, why was Marguerite wearing it in the picture of her in the window?

"I need to get home," Adrienne said curtly. "I suggest you work on your manners if you insist on involving yourself with this family," She turned abruptly an opened the driver's door to her car. "Take care, Marcus, Linda," Adrienne nodded to the couple and got into the car, pulling the door shut angrily.

"Thank you for coming," Rich's dad, Marcus, said politely to Helga before guiding his wife to their car and preparing to leave.

. . . . . . . .

Helga had been silent for most of the car ride back to the cottage. Arnold followed her inside, dropping his phone, wallet, and keys on the table and rolling up his sleeves up to his elbows for comfort's sake. It was warmer in the cottage than it was outside and he considered taking off his sweater.

Since being released from the hospital, Helga had tried to clean up the cottage. She wanted to remove every trace of what she'd almost done but the police and paramedics had made the place even more disorderly when they came to get her on the night of her attempted suicide.

Aside from the broken ceiling beam, you couldn't tell that anything unusual had happened and Helga had been keeping Rich's bedroom door shut. She didn't even want to look inside and risk the memories.

"So what do you want to do?" Arnold asked as he watched Helga walk around the main living area deep in thought.

"I need to figure out what the hell happened to Marguerite," Helga said, her brow set deep as she paced. "There's some fucked up shit going on with this family and I've gotta find out what," She looked up at Arnold and shrugged.

"Are you sure you wanna –"

"God dammit!" Helga exclaimed in exasperation. "You have no idea how tired I am of people asking me to quit or questioning why I'm doing this," She noted Arnold's taken-aback expression and softened her tone. "It's important, okay?"

Arnold nodded. "I understand," Then added, "I'll help you, if you want,"

Helga sighed and looked at him with a small smile. "I'm in no position to refuse, right? Here," She said, walking over to the coffee table where a medium sized box was sitting half-opened. "One of the things Rich and I hadn't gotten around to doing yet was checking this out," She pulled out a photo album and flipped to the pages with pictures from the parade, then motioned for Arnold to come over. "Look at this series of shots. See how she's looking across the street and then leaves the parade?" She asked as Arnold looked over her shoulder at the album. "Look at her face,"

"She looks scared," Arnold commented.

"Exactly," Helga affirmed. "Something on the other side of the street freaked her out,"

"You think whatever it was had to do with her disappearing?" Arnold asked, looking at her.

"It would make sense," Helga reasoned. "Now look behind her. There's a couple with a camera and they're facing the same direction," Helga flipped through a couple pages and then pointed to a picture in the right bottom corner. "That's them again and they're hanging out by this company truck,"

"You think you can find the couple by contacting the company?" Arnold deduced.

"It's worth a shot," Helga said, closing the album and tucking it under one arm and resting it on her hip. "If they have pictures that show what Marguerite was looking at, maybe we'll actually see the face of the person who was scaring her. No one else was looking over there. No one else looked scared or left the parade," She said emphatically. "We need to find out what was on the other side of the street,"

"Do you wanna go check out Albertson today?" Arnold offered. "We could go right now,"

"Hold your horses, Adventure Man," Helga rolled her eyes and smirked. "There's this handy invention called the phone. Why don't we call the place first?"

"Okay," Arnold said slowly. "But how do you expect them to know who we're talking about without seeing the pictures? Do you know their names?"

Helga paused for a second as she realized Arnold had a point and she had her foot in her mouth. She huffed, playing it off. "Okay, Detective," She said sarcastically, ignoring Arnold's grin. "Lead the way,"

. . . . . . . .

After a quick search on Arnold's phone, they determined that Albertson and Sons was located in Abington, about forty minutes away. The radio was turned to a mix station and served to fill the otherwise silence in the car for the first half of the ride until Helga ventured a question.

"So you know pretty much everything that's been going on with me," She began. "What have you been doing all these years?"

Arnold paused before responding. Should he tell her everything and unload all of that drama on her? If she was asking, she obviously wanted to know so maybe he should just be truthful. She had a point – it wasn't fair for him to know such in-depth things about her and then hide his own personal troubles. This wasn't the type of conversation he wanted to have while driving but she'd broached the subject so he might as well…

He chuckled nervously. "A lot," He paused and though he wasn't looking at her, Helga gave him an impatient look.

"Oh, really?" She said in mock fascination. "That's so interesting. I especially love your use of detail and elaboration, Football-head,"

Arnold rolled his eyes good-naturedly. "It's kind of tough to summarize everything. Where do you want me to start?"

Helga paused for a second to think. "Start with after high school,"

Arnold released a long exhale. "Well, you know I was dating Lila,"

"Mhm," Helga hummed in an unimpressed tone and Arnold swore if he looked over, he would've seen her rolling her eyes.

"Uh, well," He stammered, all of a sudden very nervous telling Helga about his relationship with Lila. "We ended up getting married and we moved to a different city for a little while but then we came back when my grandpa died and now she's kind of gone and I don't really know what's going on sooo yeah," Arnold said in one breath, his gaze remained fixed to the road as he turned onto an off-ramp.

"Did you learn how to breathe during that time?" Helga remarked sarcastically, surprised by his little outburst. "Criminy,"

"Sorry," Arnold muttered as he pulled up to a stoplight and sighed. "There's been some crazy stuff going on and I… I'm fine with telling you about it but maybe it should wait until we're back at the cottage? Or at least until I'm not driving," The light turned and the car revved to life as he picked up speed again.

"Okay," Helga said, her curiosity still piqued. "But… you just said Lila's gone? Did you two split up or something?"

"No," Arnold replied. "Well, we were probably on our way to that but no, that's not what I meant," He said as he slowed to a stop at another red light. "She just kind of disappeared and it looked like she'd been abducted or hurt or something but there's a lot of stuff that makes me think it was a set-up,"

"Damn," Helga breathed. "That's nuts,"

"Tell me about it…" Arnold muttered, starting to drive again. "And…" He paused, considering whether he wanted to admit this or not but he had nothing to hide. "The cops think I did it,"

He wasn't sure how to take her silence when she didn't respond right away. Was she frightened or worried? Was she second-guessing accepting his assistance? What was she thinking? He agonized in the brief minute of quiet between them until he heard Helga guffaw.

"They think you did it?" Helga laughed heartily but quickly settled. "Man, that's rich… Mr. Do-Gooder, himself," She grinned widely when Arnold shot her a look.

"Well, they do," Arnold sighed. "They arrested me and I have to go to trial in a couple months,"

"That's insane," Helga said in a more serious tone. "But you think it was staged?"

"Yeah," Arnold said as they pulled into a parking lot. "Let's talk more when we leave? I don't really want to discuss this kind of thing around other people if you don't mind,"

"Whatever floats your boat," Helga obliged as she opened her door and stepped out.

. . . . . . . .

Their outing had proved successful, though they left with more questions than answers. Upon arriving at Albertson and Sons, they'd found an employee who recognized the man in the picture as the former owner of the company, Mr. Frank Albertson, with his wife, Roberta. The employee had called in Josh Albertson, one of Frank's sons, to speak with them. After a short discussion with them and a brief phone call to his mother, Josh offered to escort Arnold and Helga to his parents' house a few blocks away.

"Thanks for agreeing to speak with us," Helga said politely as Mrs. Albertson invited them into her home with Josh following behind. Arnold smiled slightly, thinking about how different Helga was. Even though she'd mellowed out in high school, hearing her being so polite was still new.

"It's no trouble," Roberta smiled. She was a stoutly older woman with frizzy brown hair in need of another dye job. "My late husband, Frank, actually worked for Mr. Bauer, William, when he first got together – before he started his business," She escorted the three to the kitchen where they sat at a large wooden table. Arnold noted that Josh had probably only stuck around to make sure his mom was safe and that they weren't axe-murderers or something. "So, what can I do to help you?"

Helga put the photo album she'd been carrying around on top of the table and turned it around so that Roberta could see. "This is you and your husband, right?" She asked, pointing to the couple standing behind Marguerite and taking pictures.

Roberta picked up a pair of glasses that were sitting on the far end of the table, put them on, and squinted at the picture. "Yes," She said, pulling the album closer to her on the table and smiling. "This was our second wedding anniversary," The woman's eyes softened as she reminisced on fond memories.

"You wouldn't happen to still have the pictures you took that day, would you?" Arnold inquired.

Pulled out of her reverie, Roberta nodded. "I might," She said as she stood up and walked over to a bookcase in the foyer. Arnold and Helga waited patiently as Roberta searched through her albums and Josh poured himself a glass of water from the tap in the kitchen.

"I think this is it," Roberta said from the other room before appearing at the table again. She sat the album down next to Helga and stood by her, flipping through the pages until Helga started to recognize pictures of a parade.

"Right there!" Helga exclaimed when Roberta flipped to a page with Marguerite's face turned to the camera but half out of the frame. Peering closely, she could see a figure on the other side of the street that was facing the camera (and Marguerite) rather than the direction in which the crowd was looking. "Arnold, look," Helga said as she turned the album and Arnold craned his neck to see. Sure enough, there was a man on the other side of the street directly facing Marguerite. He was wearing a bright red blazer but his face was completely out of focus.

"Can we take this picture?" Helga asked. "Do you mind?"

Roberta thought for a moment but agreed. "I have plenty of pictures of the parade, dear," She said as she removed the photo from its transparent sleeve. "You can have this one,"

After they left and were alone in the car once again, Helga exclaimed, "Arnold, do you realize what this is?"

"Yeah," Arnold said with a tinge of doubt in his voice. "But it's so out of focus, Helga. All we can really see is that it's probably a guy and they're wearing a red blazer,"

"You're computer savvy; can't you edit it and make it clear?" Helga pushed impatiently.

Arnold laughed. "I mean, maybe," He shrugged as he backed out of the driveway. "I can try but the picture is old and there are no guarantees,"

"Anything's better than nothing, Football-head," Helga said as she stared at the photo in her hands, willing it to become clear. "If we can see this guy's face then we could be looking at Marguerite's killer…"