Society of the Nines (Society Series #1) Read online

  Society of the Nines

  by

  Danielle Bourdon

  Published by Wildbloom Press

  Copyright ©2011

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to any person, living or dead, any place, events or occurrences, is purely coincidental. The characters and story lines are created from the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  For Alessio

  Thank you

  Chapter One

  If society wasn't filled with liars, deceivers and betrayers, Mahayla thought, I'd be out of a job. She stared at the stack of files on her desk, all consisting of just-completed projects. Most of them were cases of cheating spouses which required her to spend time snapping photos of clandestine rendezvous and collecting evidence for her clients to use in court. One or two were genealogy related—not her specialty—and still another was a business owner who suspected a rival was using underhanded methods to drive customers away.

  She'd solved them all, even the genealogy cases, in record time. No new cases sat in the 'In' basket. Private Investigation work had slowed down as the troubled economy struggled to get back on its feet. There was little she could do to drive more customers through the door besides wait patiently and hope the ad in the yellow pages attracted some attention.

  Maybe I should redecorate the office.

  Mahayla glanced at the plush chairs on the other side of her desk, then the bookcases lining the walls, and finally the stylish divan and wingback in the designated 'waiting area'. The small, rectangular space got all its character from eclectic bits of architecture around the windows, molding on the walls, and the cream-burgundy-black décor that gave it a chic, vintage feel. Situated on the second floor above a book shop on La Palma Drive, it was perfect for her needs and really, if she was honest, didn't need a lick of updating at all.

  It needed customers.

  She needed customers. Mahayla didn't like to be idle.

  Leaning over, she plucked the photograph of her father, her mother, and herself off the desk. She'd acquired her mother's dark hair, blue eyes, and five-eight height. From her father, the CIA agent who had inspired her to become what she was, Mahayla had inherited a love of mystery, thrills and the need to find answers to questions. A recommendation (and string pulling) from her father right out of high school landed her a job at the CIA, a job she left five years later to open her own business. The reasons for her departure were complicated and personal, reasons her father never understood, much less supported.

  Four years on, she didn't regret her choice. Private investigation wasn't as intense or thrilling, sacrifices she was willing to make to keep her morality intact.

  All she regretted was that she didn't have a challenging case to sink her teeth into.

  Fate must have been listening in; a timid knock—taptaptap—came at the door.

  Mahayla set the picture down. “Come in.”

  At first, nothing happened. No one entered. Just as she stood up, the handle twisted and a woman stepped in.

  Right away, Mahayla noticed three things: the wig, the fear and the weapon. Blonde, five-two, medium height and weight, the woman closed the door but hovered near it as if she thought she might have to suddenly flee. She also clutched a can of mace in a tight fist, skin white over the knuckles. Her clothes were the kind that allowed her to blend in with any crowd: whitewashed jeans, a mint green cardigan and new tennis shoes of an indiscriminate make.

  A pair of gray shaded sunglasses hid the woman's eyes from view.

  “Can I help you?” Mahayla asked. She had the distinct impression the lady was about to bolt. Interesting.

  “Y...yes. I mean, maybe. How much for a...consultation?”

  “The consultation is free, ma'am. Would you like to sit down? I have coffee here and a few cold drinks.” Speaking smooth and slow, Mahayla gestured toward one of the chairs opposite her desk.

  “Is anyone else here?” the woman whispered.

  “No ma'am, it's just me. I'm Mahayla Breland.” She didn't move around the desk, afraid she would make the woman flee before she found out what the problem was.

  A husband turned stalker, most likely.

  Again, the woman hesitated.

  Mahayla saw the way the woman's sunglasses tilted toward the high corners of the room. Like she was looking for surveillance cameras. There were none in this specific office, though the building owner had them on the outside in case of break-ins.

  Finally, the woman walked to a chair at the desk and sat on the very edge. She didn't put the mace away. “I'm Emma Chapin.”

  Mahayla didn't sit down yet, and she didn't offer her hand. Instinct told her that would be a bad idea despite her own personal protocol. “Nice to meet you, Ms. Chapin. Would you like something to drink?”

  “No thank you.”

  “All right. What can I help you with today?” Mahayla sat down and folded her hands over the top of her desk. She realized that she didn't expect the woman to talk about an unruly ex-husband, an obsessed lover, or an irate co-worker any longer. Intuition, which she'd learned to trust long ago, warned her that whatever brought Emma here was much darker.

  Emma licked her lips and nudged the sunglasses up on the bridge of her nose with a knuckle. “Do you accept missing persons cases?”

  “Yes, I do. Who is it that's missing, Ms. Chapin?”

  “It's my son. Elliott.” Emma's sunglasses pointed down at her hands. At the mace.

  “How long has he been missing?”

  “Three years.”

  “How old is Elliott, Ms. Chapin? Have you contacted the authorities?”

  “He's twenty-nine, thirty in September. I can't contact the authorities. I need to do this on my own.”

  Mahayla sat back in her chair. “I'm not sure I understand. The authorities have a much more intricate networ--”

  “They have spies in the police department,” she whispered.

  “They?”

  Emma whipped a look behind her.

  The quick motion startled Mahayla. No one had come into the office. What had the woman so spooked?

  “I can't tell you unless you agree to take the case, Miss Breland,” Emma said when she glanced back. She seemed a little edgier.

  “I'll take the case. I need a hundred-fifty dollar deposit. The balance will be due when I find your son.” Even if she'd had ten cases ahead of this one, Mahayla wouldn't have turned it down. This was more than a simple missing persons case, more than someone who'd run off in a fit or a fury. She could feel it in her bones.

  Emma dug through her purse, keeping the mace handy at all times. She withdrew a wallet and then fished out the payment in small bills. Carefully, she made a stack on the desk.

  Mahayla pulled her receipt book over and began writing one out. “Thank you. Now then, who is 'they'?”

  “The Society of the Nines.” Emma's voice dropped below a whisper. So low that Mahayla had a hard time making the words out.

  “I'm sorry, did you say the Society of the Nines?” Mahayla glanced up. Emma's face looked ashen and her mouth had compressed into a tight line.

  “Yes, dear. Do you know them?” Her hand tightened around the mace.

  Mahayla noticed; she also knew that Emma was watching her every move, as if she suspected Mahayla might be involved with this group. She tore off the receipt and set it down. Picking up the stack of bills, she put it in a plain white envelope and set it into the top drawer. She hoped the mundane task would take the edge off Emma's tension.

  “I've never heard of them before. Why don't you tell me about them though after you tell me about Elliott.” Mahayla surmised this group, whoever they
were, might have something to do with the entire situation. She gathered a notepad and a pen and glanced at Emma.

  The sunglasses were pointed at her, suggesting Emma was staring. Mahayla strove to appear collected and calm. She wasn't entirely convinced of Emma's sanity at the moment, and really didn't want to be sprayed with mace.

  “It's my fault they're after him,” Emma lamented. Sincere regret tinged her voice.

  “Why is it your fault? What do they want with Elliott? Do you think they already have him?” Mahayla doodled on the notepad; endless little circles in a corner. Her busy mind worked over the evolving details.

  “Because he was born on September ninth. If I could have only had him one day earlier, or one day later.” Emma exhaled what sounded like an exhausted sigh.

  “I don't understand the correlation.” Mahayla wished the woman would remove the sunglasses. She might get a better read on her.

  “Nine. Nine, nine, nine,” Emma said. She leaned forward and, without asking, flipped the pages on Mahayla's desktop calendar until the date on the pages read: September 9th, 1999.

  Mahayla stared at the date. Obviously, the number Nine played a prominent part. Society of the Nines. All the nines in Elliott's upcoming birthday. Roughly eight weeks away.

  “You didn't say whether you thought they'd made contact with Elliott,” Mahayla reminded her.

  “No. No, I don't think they have. That's why I'm here.” Emma's sunglasses tipped up from the calendar toward her again. “I want you to find him before they do.”

  “Why doesn't Elliott just find you?”

  “Because he knows they watch me. Now, they'll be watching you too.”

  . . .

  Mahayla had years of experience in self defense. She knew how to shoot a gun, was adept at martial arts, and kept herself informed of the latest tricks and techniques for disarming an attacker. Her father had insisted she start when she was young.

  It took more than hearing some lunatic fringe group might keep an eye on her to send her hackles up. She made a few notes in shorthand on the pad and looked at Emma's sunglasses, since they couldn't make direct eye contact.

  “Don't worry, I can handle it, Ms. Chapin. Where did you see Elliott last? I'll need any address you have for him, a cell phone number, his last job--”

  “Elliott won't allow me to know any of that. Not since he was sixteen. I don't know what skills he has, or where he's worked, or how he makes money. I can't tell you what state—or even what country—he's in.” Emma rested her hands on her lap. The mace was still lodged in her fist.

  Mahayla stopped scribbling. She'd wanted a challenge, hadn't she? “What about his social security number? His full name?”

  “Elliott Christopher Chapin. I'm sure he doesn't use his last name any longer. Maybe not his first, either.” While she read off the social security number, she dug into her purse. What she pulled out was a picture. She laid it on the desk.

  Mahayla scribbled on the pad, then looked at the handsome face staring up at her from the black and white photo. Strong features, square jaw, intense eyes. They were light, gray or blue she thought, though it was hard to tell. A plain white tee shirt stretched across broad shoulders and tapered down into lean hips. His hair seemed a medium shade of brown with a few paler streaks, probably from spending time in the sun.

  The single most noticeable trait about Elliott Chapin was that he looked hunted. In this freeze-frame, he appeared anxious or worried, walking at a hectic pace across an intersection. New York, maybe, with the buildings slightly blurred in the background.

  “When was this taken?” she asked.

  “About three years ago. It was the last time I heard from him. He sent me this with no return address,” Emma replied.

  “Do you still have the envelope?” She might be able to lift fingerprints or something else useful from it.

  “I'm sorry, I don't. I burned it.”

  “Did he have any favorite nicknames? Something you used to call him no one else knew about?”

  “Sometimes I called him Lee. For my brother who passed a long time ago. They look almost exactly alike.” A faint smile flickered across Emma's mouth.

  “Good, good. All this helps. What is his favorite food? Favorite car? Is there any place he is more fond of than others?”

  “Cherry Jello. He could eat bowls and bowls when he was a boy. But when we would meet, later on after he left you know, he always smelled like Chinese food.”

  Mahayla wrote it all down. Shorthand, so few people would understand should they get their eyes on her notepad.

  “Great. Now. About the Society. Who are they, where did they come from—give me everything you can.”

  Emma fidgeted with the mace. “Who are they? They're—everyone around you, dear. They could be the dentist, your lawyer, or the newspaper boy. I can't tell you where they meet anymore. I've been out of the cult for--”

  “Wait, cult? You were a part of this thing?” Mahayla sat straighter in her chair. Again, an uneasy sensation slithered down her spine. Society of the Nines. It didn't ring a bell. She would have remembered something like that in her time at the CIA. Maybe they were too small to really catch the notice of the government.

  “I was born into it. As was Elliott. They have been around a very long time.” Emma cast a fearful look over her shoulder toward the door.

  Mahayla watched Emma instead. She'd heard about groups like this. Sucking members in by preying on some level of emotional or spiritual weakness. Being born into a cult didn't leave someone much chance to form opinions other than what they were fed by manipulative minds.

  “How did you get out?” First things first.

  “None of that really matters--”

  “Actually, it does matter. If this cu—group—is harassing Elliott, I need to know all I can.”

  Emma's sunglasses faced her again. “Cult. Not group. Cult.”

  “All right. This cult. How did you get out?”

  “I disappeared with Elliott when he was twelve. The members live normal, regular lives, Miss Breland. The cult didn't know I had defected for months after I left. It gave Elliott and I a good head start. I studied and researched how to hide.” By the time Emma was done speaking, her voice was again barely above a whisper.

  “Where did you take Elliott?”

  “I took him to Baker, California. But I paid a gentleman a lot of money to make it look like Elliott and I fled to Canada. He got us new identities, new everything, and we built a life in that little dusty town in the middle of nowhere. They found us though, like I knew they eventually would. Elliott was sixteen. He managed to escape and he's been on the run ever since.”

  “If they know you're here, and you think they're following you, why haven't they picked you up?” Mahayla asked.

  “Because I'm the only lead they have to Elliott now. He's very good at hiding, dear.”

  “I still think you should take this to the police--” Before she could finish, Emma started shaking her head. No.

  “It's risky enough talking to you. Take what precautions you need to if you find him. Tell Elliott—just tell him that I love him, and that I'm sorry.” The sunglasses aimed down at her hands.

  “I think you should tell him. Let me see what I can dig up, okay? Give me two days and I'll get back to you.” Mahayla ripped off a piece of notepad paper and set it in front of Emma.

  She shook her head. “I'll be in touch with you.”

  “I at least need your phone number, Ms. Chapin.”

  “I don't have one.” Emma stood up.

  “But wait, I still have a few more questions--”

  “I'm sorry, dear. I need to be moving along.”

  Mahayla stood and edged around the corner of her desk. “Why is it they want Elliott so bad? Why right now?”

  Emma walked to the door. She paused with her hand on the knob. “They intend to sacrifice him on his birthday.”

  Chapter Two

  A hundred questions rattled around Mahayla's
mind: have they ever sacrificed anyone before? Did you witness it? Did you ever take part? Who did the sacrificing? Who leads this group?

  She stared at the door in Emma's wake, baffled. It was more than possible that Emma Chapin had imagined much of what she thought was truth. Or maybe she'd been brainwashed to believe it.

  Mahayla went back to her desk and got into the second drawer. Taking out a clear plastic bag, she put Elliott's photo in and sealed the closure. Sitting in the chair, she brought the laptop out of sleep mode and put her fingers on the keys.

  First things first. Elliott Christopher Chapin. What seemed like a million links popped up. She checked the top ten social networking sites for every exact name match, looking for anything familiar. None of the faces looked remotely like the one in the picture. She tried another tactic.

  Elliott Chapin.

  Lee Chapin.

  Lee Elliott

  Christopher Lee.

  It took her three hours to scan the top sites and rule out that any of those were the Elliott she was looking for. Elliott knew to stay out of places he could be easily found, even under logical aliases. Next, she went through residential phone directories in Canada, Mexico, Nevada and Arizona. The closest, easiest places to get to from Baker, and Canada just in case.

  She typed in all the possible names she could think of.

  Still nothing.

  The door to her office swung open with a sudden whoosh. Startled, Mahayla glanced up.

  Mellow, mid-afternoon sunshine had given way to the dusty orange of dusk; the color slanted across a tall man with black hair and green eyes that were pinned right on her.

  “Hello, Damian.” Mahayla sat back in her chair. The day she had become an ex-CIA agent, Damian had become her ex-lover. His disappointment in her decision wreaked havoc on their year long relationship and she'd ended it with no drama or fanfare. To her surprise, Damian insisted on remaining a prominent fixture in her life. Several times he'd tried to rekindle the flame she'd extinguished so resolutely, but she neatly sidestepped any involvement that went beyond the boundaries of friendship.