Part 7 of a series. Please take the time to read 1-6.
Ali had just returned home to her family's Minnesota dairy farm for the summer after her first year of college at the U of M.
Her father was not sure if he liked all the changes in the way she dressed, the piercings and that strange horse head tattoo that she had on her thigh.
He knew something had happened shortly after she had started her freshman year, that made her pull away from her family.
Today Rich Shanhan was making the short drive into the twin cities to find out what was going on with his daughter.
In the past Rich and his daughter were always able to talk about anything.
But the last few months when he had tried to talk to Ali, she would never want to make any eye contact with her father and always acted like she wanted to keep the conversations short.
Most of the time it seemed as if she would go out of her way to avoid any contact with him at all.
Rich understood that Ali was on her own for the first time in her life and probably needed time to adjust to college.
She had always been independent and wanted to make her own decisions on what she was going to do with her life.
So Rich didn't push her for answers because of the fear that he might make her rebel and pull away further.
What really bothered Rich the most was that Ali would call her mother with some lame excuse for not coming home for the holidays. She then seemed to just vanish on these days and if they tried to call her cell phone there would never be an answer.
Usually it would be several days later before she would call back to answer the voice messages they had left.
Then there was that unforgettable day in late August.
Rich had traveled to the cities for a business trip for the dairy.
He decided that as long he was in town that he would drive down to the college to surprise Ali and take her out to dinner.
He parked in the main lot right next to her car to wait for her to finish her last class of the day.
Rich spotted Ali coming out of the classroom building and noticed that she was walking towards the lot with an older looking man that was dressed in a suit.
Before he could call out her name (to get her attention) she had quickly gotten into a car with the man and drove away.
The next day he called Ali on the phone to tell her about his trip to the cities and that he had just missing her the day before in the parking lot of the school at around 4 in the afternoon.
He then asked Ali "Who was the man that you got into the car with?
Ali told him that he was mistaken and that he must have just seen another girl that looked like her, because by 4 she was already back in the dorm studying
Rich knew his daughter was telling him a lie.
He had called the dorm and talked to her roommate and she had told him that Ali was not there.(Nigel's pet ch 01 explains that day).
It hurt him knowing that for the last several mouths that she seemed to be always telling lies to cover her tracks, but he really didn't have any hard evidence.
Richard Shanhan wanted to find out the truth about his daughter's unexplained disappearances so he hired a local private detective.
Rich didn't like the idea of spying on Ali but there where just too many signs pointing to the fact that there was something wrong in his daughter's life
Was she on drugs? What has happened to Ali that has changed her so? Why is she lying to us all the time?
He had found the private investigator through the local yellow pages .
On the bottom right hand corner of page 850 there was a picture of a very overweight man along with this text: Nobody can hide the truth from James Patrick Scott. Your wife or husband cheating? Your employees stealing you blind? Let JP answer your questions with modern hidden video technology.
It was a little after three in the afternoon when Rich arrived at the PI's office located in south St. Paul.
After double checking the address, Rich drove his new Lincoln to the front of the red brick building and parked next to the detectives rusted out 78 Cadillac and went inside.
James Patrick Scott's office was a total mess from one end to the other.
Fast food wrappers were piled on the floor around an already full trash can and overflowing ash trays where scattered all over the room.
Along the outer walls, boxes full of files were stacked with no visible pattern.
The air smelled of the old cigarette butts and the foul body odor given off from the fat man sitting behind the desk.
"Hi" I am Richard Shanhan " You said on the phone that you have some information about my daughter?"
JP said back to his client" Yes ,I think I have found exactly what you have been looking for. Have a seat Mr. S and I will go over the information with you."
"Now you must understand that what I am about to show you might be very upsetting to you as a father and the pictures are quite graphic." James told Rich.
"I need to know what's going on with my daughter, so just get on with it." Rich said back.
On the desk in front of James were the stacks of photos and the video's he had taken without the young girls knowledge.
"Let me show you part of the first tape so you can see what she has been doing." JP said to Ali's father.
The two men sat with their eyes glued to the small TV screen as the video started to play.
It showed a white limo pull up in front of Ali's dorm and the young girl dressed in a very short red dress coming outside and sliding into backseat of the car.
"I followed them across town and they ended up at the Radisson on the west side of Minneapolis." JP said.
The video showed the car pulling up to the main entrance of the hotel and Ali and a older gentlemen got out of the back of the limo and went inside.
"Who is that guy?" Rich questioned " I saw Ali and him get into his car in front of her school several months ago."
"He is Eric Nigel Lucas." JP responded "He is one of Ali's professors at the U."
