One Day Gone Read online

  One Day Gone

  A Mylas Grey Mystery

  Book I

  by Luana Ehrlich

  Copyright © 2019 Luana Ehrlich

  All rights reserved.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

  Visit the author’s website LuanaEhrlich.com

  Both Titus Ray Thrillers and Mylas Grey Mysteries are available on Amazon here

  When you sign up for Luana’s newsletter, you’ll also receive a FREE download of One Step Back, the prequel to the Titus Ray Thriller Series. Sign up here.

  To James Ehrlich,

  the most mysterious man I know,

  and the love of my life.

  Complete List of Books

  by Luana Ehrlich

  Titus Ray Thrillers:

  Each Titus Ray Thriller can be read as a standalone novel, but for readers who prefer the series experience, I would suggest reading the novels in the following order:

  One Step Back, the prequel to One Night in Tehran

  One Night in Tehran, Book I

  Two Days in Caracas, Book II

  Three Weeks in Washington, Book III

  Four Months in Cuba, Book IV

  Five Years in Yemen, Book V

  Two Steps Forward, Book VI

  Three Steps Away, Book VII (coming 2020)

  Mylas Grey Mysteries

  Each Mylas Grey Mystery can be read as a standalone novel, but for readers who prefer the series experience, I would suggest reading the novels in the following order:

  One Day Gone, Book I

  Two Days Taken, Book II (coming in 2020)

  Other books by Luana Ehrlich:

  Titus Ray Thriller Recipes with Short Stories, Kindle edition only

  All Titus Ray Thrillers and Mylas Grey Mysteries are available on Amazon here.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  PART ONE

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  PART TWO

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  PART THREE

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  A NOTE TO MY READERS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  BONUS EXCERPT

  PROLOGUE

  PART ONE

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  PART ONE

  Chapter 1

  Tuesday, October 9

  Today was Tuesday. On Tuesdays, I had lunch with the senator. My schedule for the rest of the day would depend on whether or not the senator had read my one-page weekly briefing sheet.

  Even though I’d met with the senator every Tuesday for the past six years, I couldn’t predict what would happen when the two of us sat down together to eat our Cobb salads at precisely eleven-thirty.

  I hated Cobb salad.

  If the senator had read my briefing sheet, then our lunch meeting would be short, and I could still be on time for my two o’clock appointment. I might even be able to grab a burger along the way.

  If he hadn’t read it, then he’d ask me to give him the bullet points, and he’d spend the rest of the time asking me questions. In the meantime, I’d be dying of hunger, and I’d be late for my appointment.

  Would I be tempted to let him know his questions were all answered in the document he hadn’t bothered to read?

  Oh, you bet.

  Would I yield to that temptation?

  Not if I wanted to keep my job.

  Believe me, I wanted to keep my job.

  I worked in the office of Senator Davis Allen.

  I was his chief investigator.

  Very few senators had a full-time investigator on their payroll, but Senator Allen, the senior senator from Missouri, was the head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and, according to him, his position required it.

  One of the Judiciary Committee’s main responsibilities was to conduct investigations into the backgrounds of the President’s judicial nominees to the federal courts or to investigate the President’s nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, if such a vacancy occurred.

  Each of the senators on Judiciary was allotted a supplemental budget to pay for the investigative work required of the committee. Some senators used these funds to hire a part-time investigator, but most of them preferred to use the money to add extra support staff.

  However, Senator Allen, who used to be a federal prosecutor, had chosen to have an entire investigative team operating out of his office, and he was more than willing to allocate extra money out of his operating budget to pay for it.

  His investigative team, which he referred to as the R & I Group, consisted of a chief investigator, a deputy investigator, and a data specialist.

  Six years ago, when the senator hired me as the chief investigator for the R & I Group, I asked him about the name. At the time, he told me the initials stood for Research and Investigations.

  Later, Nathan Lockett, the senator’s chief of staff, swore the senator told him the R & I was short for Rumors and Innuendos.

  When it came to the type of fact-finding the R & I Group conducted on a nominee, it hardly mattered.

  They both amounted to the same thing.

  My current investigation was a case in point.

  The one-page briefing sheet I’d prepared for my meeting with the senator outlined what the R & I Group had uncovered on Cameron Woodard, the Missouri Supreme Court Judge who’d been nominated by the President for a position on the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

  Although the investigation was still in the early stages, I’d uncovered some rumors and innuendos about Judge Woodard.

  During the next several weeks, my job would be to research and investigate whether any of these rumors and innuendos had any validity to them.

  Part of the investigation would involve hours of research, although I usually delegated that boring activity to Nina Rivers, the data specialist in the R & I Group.

  The amount of material she was able to uncover when she did a deep data dive into a person’s background always amazed me.

  I told her how amazing she was fairly often.

  She reveled in such praise.

  If I gave her accolades on her work and asked her to do a follow-up on the material, she’d come up with even more stuff.

  The opposite was also true.

  If I got preoccupied with the results and failed to give her kudos, her output would substantially decrease.

  Learning how to work with Nina hadn’t been that difficult.

  On the other hand, figuring out how to maneuver my way through the halls of Congress had been a whole lot harder.

  If it hadn’t been for Nathan Lockett, my immediate supervisor and self-appointed mentor, I might have quit after my first year and gone back to practici
ng law.

  Or, maybe not.

  Practicing law had made me rich—the result of a lucky break, not my lawyering skills—but I’d been unhappy most of the time.

  Now, even though I couldn’t say I was any happier, at least I could say I was enjoying what I was doing.

  When I was growing up back in Columbia, Missouri, I never thought I’d be anything other than a lawyer.

  In fact, I was obsessed with it.

  My father blamed Robert Bork for my obsession.

  * * * *

  I was only fifteen years old when President Reagan nominated Robert Bork to the Supreme Court back in 1987. It was the summer I got my wisdom teeth out.

  During my recuperation, I started watching the confirmation hearings from my dad’s Barcalounger in the den, and I stayed glued to the television set weeks after I no longer resembled a chipmunk.

  I was completely fascinated by the confirmation process, but I was even more fascinated by the ability of Judge Bork to maintain his composure while being grilled by members of the Judiciary Committee who opposed his nomination.

  Although I couldn’t understand their arguments against him, and I was clueless about the cases they cited, Bork’s confidence and self-assurance appealed to me.

  As a gawky teenager, not only was I completely unsure of myself, I was also dealing with questions about my future. Where should I go to college? What kind of career should I pursue?

  As far as my father was concerned, those questions had already been settled. His plans were for me to live at home and attend the University of Missouri—which was practically in our backyard—and then go to work for him fulltime after graduation.

  He’d had the same plans for Curtis, my older brother, but during Curtis’s senior year at MU, he announced he had received a higher calling, and he left home to attend seminary.

  Like Curtis, I had no desire to work for my father. Finding the courage to tell him so was another matter, especially since I didn’t have any idea what career I’d choose instead.

  But that summer, after seeing the confident way Judge Bork handled himself in the midst of overwhelming opposition and hearing the passionate way he defended the law, I decided to become a lawyer, a rich lawyer.

  Confronting my father came a little later. Like, two years later.

  When I was a senior in high school, unbeknownst to my parents, I made the two-hour trip from Columbia over to Kansas City to hear Judge Bork speak at Webster University.

  The moment I got back to Columbia, I drove straight over to my father’s office. At the time, he was renting space in a strip mall on 7th Street not far from the Boone County Courthouse.

  Although it wasn’t a prestigious address, my father liked the free parking, plus his office was located between a bail bondsman and a seedy law firm, and most of my father’s clientele came from one or both of those establishments.

  It was after five o’clock when I entered the reception area. Since Gracie Sturgis, my father’s secretary, had already gone home for the day, I walked down the narrow hallway and pushed open the door to his office without knocking.

  “Where have you been, Mylas?” he asked, peering at me over his half-glasses. “I told you I had an assignment for you today. Did you forget that conversation?”

  “I won’t be doing any more assignments for you,” I said.

  He slowly removed his half-glasses and laid them down on the stack of black and white photographs in front of him. The glossy print on top showed a man and woman seated at a restaurant together. They were both laughing.

  He stared at me without saying a word for a moment.

  Finally, he asked, “Why not?”

  “I’ve decided to become a lawyer. I plan to go to college at Georgetown University—that’s in Washington, D.C.—and then—”

  “I know where Georgetown University is.”

  “—and then I’ll get my law degree from Georgetown Law School. When I graduate from there, I’ll probably go to work for one of the big law firms in Washington. One day, I may even argue a case before the U.S. Supreme Court.”

  “I can see you’ve given this some thought.”

  Gesturing at one of the guest chairs in front of his desk, he said, “Why don’t you have a seat, and we’ll talk about it.”

  I couldn’t help but notice he was using the same tone of voice I’d heard him use with his clients, especially those who were talking crazy and expressing outlandish ideas.

  “Don’t try to talk me out of this,” I said. “I’ve made up my mind.”

  “No, Mylas, I won’t try to talk you out of it. In fact, I respect the decision you’ve made. I know it’s never easy when you decide to change directions in your life.”

  I sat down across from him.

  “Uh . . . yeah, I guess so, but I’m not really changing directions. My life hasn’t even started yet.”

  “You’ve been working here since you were fourteen years old, and now you’re telling me you want to become a lawyer. In my mind, that’s changing directions.”

  “But, Dad, I was only working here to make a few bucks. It’s never been something I wanted to do for the rest of my life.”

  “Since you brought up the subject of money, maybe we should discuss that. You know law school isn’t cheap.”

  “I can apply for a scholarship at Georgetown just like I can at MU. I’m an ‘A’ student. There’s no reason for them to turn me down.”

  “What about housing? Where would you live?”

  “I could live in the dorm. My housing could be part of my scholarship money.”

  He reached over and picked up a tattered baseball he often used as a paperweight. After rolling it around in his hand for a few seconds, he looked up and said, “You really want to become a lawyer?”

  “Yes, and I think I’d be a good one too.”

  He nodded. “I believe you’d be good at almost anything you set out to do, but the question is, would you be happy being a lawyer?”

  “Oh, yeah. I’m sure I’ll be very happy. Lawyers who work in Washington make a lot of money.”

  “Making a lot of money doesn’t mean you’ll be happy, but that’s a lesson everyone has to learn for themselves.”

  He placed the baseball back on his desk. “If you want to become a lawyer, I’ll do what I can to help you.”

  “Really?” I was speechless for a moment. “You mean you’re not upset I won’t be working here?”

  “No, Mylas. I figured you’d eventually leave and start your own agency one day.”

  He stared off in the distance for a few seconds.

  “You have great instincts, Son. People trust you. When people trust you, they tell you things. As I’ve said before, the ability to find out stuff is one of the essential qualities of being a successful private detective. Personally, I think you’ll be wasting your talents if you become a lawyer. You’re much better suited for investigative work.”

  Of course, he’d been right about that.

  * * * *

  I’d gotten into Georgetown University, and, despite a few missteps along the way—one involving a fraternity party gone awry—I’d been accepted into Georgetown Law School.

  My three years at Georgetown Law were spent reading, listening to lectures, reading, listening to lectures, reading, listening to lectures. In between reading and listening to lectures, I worked.

  Criminal law and constitutional law both piqued my interest, but, in the end, I decided to specialize in criminal law.

  To a large extent, my decision was influenced by Daniel Epstein, a law professor I met in a coffee shop during my first week on campus. He also helped me obtain a summer associate position at a criminal law firm—a rare occurrence among first-year law students.

  I couldn’t say for sure why he took such an interest in me—it was something we never discussed—but I suspected it was his way of paying me back for rescuing him from a couple of punks who tried to mug him outside The Wise Owl—the coffee shop where I was sitti
ng when the incident occurred.

  I’d noticed the would-be muggers following him while I was nursing a cup of coffee at a window seat inside The Wise Owl.

  At the time, I had no idea he was a professor.

  He looked more like an aging businessman. He was carrying a large briefcase in one hand, while glancing down at a document in his other hand, seemingly unaware he was being stalked.

  When he passed in front of an alleyway between a couple of buildings, the two muggers quickly rushed forward, pushed him into the darkened passageway, and shoved him up against one of the buildings.

  I was out the door and across the street immediately, barely aware I’d made the decision to get involved until the whole thing was over.

  The two scumbags abandoned their plans when I showed up. Once they disappeared down the alleyway, I pointed across the street and offered to buy him a cup of coffee.

  Ordinarily, I was pretty stingy with my money—I couldn’t afford to be otherwise—but the guy looked as if he might be in a state of shock.

  I’d seen that look before on some of my father’s clients, and my father’s first response had always been to offer them a cup of coffee.

  “You can talk anyone down off a ledge if you offer them a cup of coffee,” he’d told Curtis and me more than once. “It should be your first solution to every problem.”

  I followed his advice, and the professor immediately accepted my offer. As soon as I placed a mug of black coffee in front of him, he introduced himself and thanked me profusely.

  When I told him I was enrolled at the Law Center, he began peppering me with questions about my interests, my background, and my aspirations.

  “So your father’s a private detective,” he said, nodding his head. “The way you handled yourself with those guys, I thought you might have some background in law enforcement. Was your father a cop before he became a PI?”