Mr. Ballin

Claude said it was just an ordinary Monday for her, and that after work, she had picked up their daughter, Alabama, from school and driven her to her dance recital.

She had expected to meet Patrique there at the recital, and it really surprised her when he didn't show up, because even though Patrique had plenty of flaws,

He was a good dad.

And at that, Merriere sort of leaned forward because Patryk's flaws were actually what he wanted to know about.

Now, he didn't think Claude was guilty of anything here since she had a pretty strong alibi and didn't really stand to benefit from Patryk's disappearance.

But he hoped she could maybe tell him about any old habits or current habits that could have gotten Patryk into trouble.

And so when he asked her about this, Claude hesitated before saying she really didn't want to badmouth Patrique, but he drank and gambled a lot more than he should.

At this point, Verriere pressed her for more details, but Claude just insisted that Patrique had really always kept that part of his life away from her.

But after she thought about it for a moment, she said there was someone who might be able to tell Verriere more.

And then she called their 12-year-old daughter, Alabama, into the room.

Alabama appeared very visibly nervous and shaken up by everything going on with her dad.

But her mother, Claude, took her hand and encouraged her to share her story.

And slowly, the girl began to speak.

She said that about a week before her dad disappeared, he'd brought her along on a very strange errand.

They'd parked outside of a tunnel, and he'd told her to wait in the car.

And then he got out and walked into this tunnel to meet with someone.

It was a man.

but it was too dark in the tunnel for Alabama to make out the man's features.

But she definitely saw her father, Patrick, hand this man some kind of package before he quickly turned and ran back to the car.

And then afterwards, her father wouldn't tell her who this man was.