CHAPTER FORTY

 

 

THE DARK NIGHT surrounded Mary Jo like a welcoming blanket. The night air was still warm and the dryness of the forest underbrush made almost any movement a possible noisy step.

She had on night vision goggles and could see fairly clearly from the light gathered in from what few stars got through the smog and haze that seemed to perpetually cover this area of the state. It wasn’t a damp haze, either, but felt like a dry smoke instead.

Mary Jo settled into a crouch, studying her watch for the exact right moment to move. The drones that guarded the area around the church compound were automatic and set on an exact schedule. Mary Jo could hear the background buzzing of all of them in the area, but one drone noise seemed to get louder for a moment as she stayed very still.

Within seconds, the drone moved past her. There was no chance it could see her since she was dressed in complete black and the drones did not carry any form of heat sensor. As long as she didn’t move when it passed overhead, it wouldn’t see her.

That alone was a fatal flaw in an otherwise pretty solid drone defense of the area outside the church walls. That flaw had allowed them to not bring down the drones until the actual attack. Much better timing.

She gave the drone a moment to get past her location and then kept moving, making no sound at all as she moved along the dry ground cover.

In another thirty seconds she was at the hidden exit of the escape tunnel from the church. At one point, after finding the location of the escape tunnels, they had considered just going into the church that way, but all of them agreed there were just too many unknowns inside.

And all three of them had survived for centuries not allowing unknowns to be a part of any plan.

Mary Jo hated unknowns. At the moment, she felt that there were no unknowns at all in this plan.

It had been three days since Susan and Jean had joined her again here in California. And what Susan had found to prove that Jack Kelsall really was imitating Carson White was stunning.

She not only had DNA evidence that the John Doe body was Carson, but she had found and talked with three of the fake Carson’s former boyfriends.

Jilted boyfriends, it seems. And they had been more than willing to give her dirt on some personal stuff about the fake Carson. Things like he wasn’t a real blond but instead just dyed his hair and wore colored contacts.

The three of them had put all the information together in very clean packets, with names, dates, data, and evidence. Then yesterday they had sent out the packets to every jurisdiction that might have standing in the case of fraud and murder.

Turns out for the fraud, that was a lot of jurisdictions. The fake church had really spread out.

And at the same time they had sent out the same information to every major news source in California and Nevada.

It was clear in the packets of information how it would be possible to back up the fact that Jack Kelsall had killed Carson White. They sent the videos of the fall, pointing out some things in the videos not seen before, such as the falling body’s hair color. Modern film forensics could do wonders with older recordings.

They also detailed in the information how Kelsall as fake Carson had been bilking people out of millions for over twenty years with phony promises.

And just for good measure, they had tossed in how he had been cheating the government on the taxes as well since the church was a scam.

Jack Kelsall, aka fake Carson White, was set up for a huge fall.

So this afternoon, right before they left the suburban house for the last time, they drained all of the fake Carson White’s personal millions as well as every dime the fake church had.

Mary Jo had loved watching Susan and Jean do that.

And they made it all look as if the fake Carson had moved the money offshore and was about to flee because he was being exposed.

The three of them were now many, many millions richer each. The money didn’t matter to them, but for Mary Jo it sure felt right to do.

Again, the sound of an approaching drone over her head made her crouch and study her watch.

Exactly on time.

Mary Jo waited until a drone passed overhead, then carefully opened the escape hatch just enough to not trigger any alarms.

Moving slowly, she pulled a long black package from her backpack and slid it inside the hatch.

She then closed the escape hatch carefully.

At that moment she knew that Jean and Susan were doing exactly the same thing at the other two hatches.

Mary Jo moved slowly back away from the hatch until she was at a safe distance, then set the trigger to the explosive package. The plan was to set all three off at once. But now the package would explode if anyone got near it while trying to use the escape hatch.

Mary Jo just hoped the fake Carson didn’t try to leave tonight through any of the tunnels. There would hardly be enough left of him to do a DNA test on if he did.

Again Mary Jo crouched and kept completely still until a drone passed overhead, then silently she moved back into the forest.

It was almost time.