Ashley Flowers

One, their wages were being garnished.

And two, their security clearances at the lab had been suspended because of their deteriorating financial situation.

Melissa even had to move workspaces because she no longer had the clearance required for the office where she'd been working.

I mean, he's more saying that he didn't realize how catastrophic it had gotten, which is kind of hard for the Mondragons to believe.

Because the couple had been hit with more than a dozen lawsuits or claims over the years, mostly tied to unpaid debts, business disputes and family matters.

But he maintains that he was in the dark on a lot of this stuff, that Melissa was, like, intercepting legal paperwork and hiding letters from attorneys or whatever.

I have no idea.

But either way, like, it seems like all of this financial stuff was coming to a head because he says that when he confronted her about the wage garnishment and asked how they were going to afford Sierra's beauty school, Melissa told him that she had gotten a lawyer

and that they had an upcoming court date to appeal a lawsuit judgment.

But now, he just found out apparently that wasn't true.

There was no ongoing appeal.

And in all her paperwork, he also discovered that she had applied for a personal loan to cover Sierra's tuition and been rejected.

And based on the dates of things, it looks like she had just gotten that rejection days before she disappeared.

Now, on top of that, Mark tells everyone that things weren't going well for Melissa professionally.

Besides the clearance issue, she had also been flagged for performance problems at work.

So Mark's theory that he is telling everyone about is that the pressure must have finally just reached a boiling point and Melissa bolted before it all came crashing down.

But, but he also predicts that she's going to be home before the weekend is over.

because she has an important work meeting on Monday.

Or, you know what, he floats another idea.

Maybe Melissa loved Sierra so much that she left on purpose so that Mark could declare her dead in a few months and then collect her life insurance and, like, set Sierra up financially.