Chapter 13
After Liam headed out for a quick run, Lina settled back at the kitchen table with her laptop and a fresh cup of coffee.
It was very early and the rest of the development still seemed asleep.
Everything was quiet except for the occasional creak of the house settling and the slight hum of the refrigerator.
She preferred quiet when she was researching. It was just her and the data.
She pulled up her search results on Marguerite Ainsworth and started digging deeper.
The alias was older than she’d thought. Property records showed Ainsworth purchasing the Bayshore house forty-seven years ago, which meant Mrs. E had been building her network of safe houses for quite some time.
Long before her betrayal of the coven became public knowledge.
Lina made notes as she worked, building a timeline.
Marguerite Ainsworth had opened bank accounts, established credit, even filed tax returns.
It was a thoroughly constructed identity, complete with a driver’s license photo that matched Mrs. E’s general description but with subtle differences.
Marguerite had darker hair, glasses, and chose different styles for her clothing.
Someone who knew what they were looking for might spot the similarities, but most people wouldn’t notice she and Mrs. E were the same woman without looking closely.
Lina cross-referenced the Ainsworth alias with known associates of the Venifucus.
That wasn’t a public database, but something she’d been working on in conjunction with the shifter Lords of North America and a few others.
Ever since the resurgence of the Venifucus was discovered several years ago, the Lords had taken a special interest in trying to identify and track them.
Lina had been consulted by the security expert for the Lords, a werebear named Rocco Garibaldi, who worked closely with the leadership of all shifters in North America.
She’d been honored to be asked to consult on the project and, as a result, had special access to the high-security database.
She ran the search, but found no direct connections to any known Venifucus agents, but there were some interesting patterns.
Her mundane searches of Marguerite’s credit card statements had turned up three purchases at occult supply shops in the tri-state area over the past two years, all paid for with the same Ainsworth credit card.
Lina pulled up the itemized receipts and studied them.
Dried herbs. Rare minerals. Specific types of candles used in ritual magic. And one purchase that made her sit up straighter. Marguerite had bought a set of pure silver ceremonial knives that were sold as curiosities, but to those in the know, they were used for blood magic.
“Gotcha,” Lina murmured, making a copy of the receipt and adding it to her growing file.
She expanded her search, looking for other purchases in the same time frame.
Storage unit rentals appeared next. Marguerite had small storage spaces reserved at two different facilities, all within a twenty-minute drive of Center Moriches.
All were under the Ainsworth name, and all were paid in full, a year in advance.
Lina jotted down the addresses. They’d need to check those units, though she suspected they could be rigged to blow like the houses. Mrs. E seemed to enjoy her explosive parting gifts.
Lina’s phone buzzed with an email notification.
Her contact at the postal service had come through with additional information.
The PO box in Center Moriches wasn’t the only one.
Penelope Atwood had three other boxes registered in the nearby towns of Patchogue, Shirley, and Center Moriches.
All within easy driving distance of each other.
A network. Mrs. E had built an entire network of identities, properties, and mail drops. The woman was paranoid, prepared, and far more organized than Lina had given her credit for being.
Lina pulled up a map and marked all the locations, including the two houses, the storage units, the PO boxes.
There was no real pattern, except they were all on the east end of Long Island, mostly toward the south shore.
But that didn’t mean much, really. The island might be very long east to west, but north to south was relatively easy to travel in a short amount of time.
She studied the map and looked for areas that might stand out to her.
Mrs. Peabody had talked about Mrs. E needing a place of power to cast the spell on the grimoire page.
Sometimes, those kinds of places were somewhat obvious on maps because they lined up with other significant places.
Or, in a case like this, where the whole area was heavily populated, they might stick out because they were somewhat empty of housing. A few places looked interesting.
There were the Pine Barrens preserves, of course, but other than having a lot of scrubby little pine trees, they were also somewhat unremarkable.
There was the big circle of the cyclotron at Brookhaven National Laboratory.
Lina had no doubt that was some kind of powerful place, though whether of the magical or just the mundane kind, she wasn’t sure.
It was also heavily guarded. She doubted Mrs. E would pick that kind of place for her ritual.
Lina kept studying the map, and the only other place that drew her eye was from a bygone era. Wardenclyffe. The site of Nikola Tesla’s unfinished tower.
Her pulse quickened. Mrs. Peabody had talked about places of power, where the barrier between realms might be thinner, and magic would be amplified.
If Tesla had been drawn to that location for his experiments with wireless energy transmission, maybe there was more to the site than just scientific interest.
Lina opened a new tab and started researching Wardenclyffe.
The tower had been demolished in 1917, but the property remained.
It had been a Superfund cleanup site for years due to industrial contamination, which meant it had been largely abandoned and unwatched for decades.
Perfect for someone who needed privacy for dark rituals.
She made more notes, her handwriting getting messier as her excitement built. This felt right. All the pieces were starting to align.
A floorboard creaked overhead. Liam was back from his run and moving around in his room. Lina glanced at the clock and was surprised to see only an hour had passed. She’d hit the jackpot research-wise and it felt like she’d been at it much longer. She was close to a breakthrough, she could feel it.
Lina pulled up property records for the Wardenclyffe site. It was currently owned by a nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving Tesla’s legacy. Public access was limited, but the grounds were large and mostly undeveloped. Plenty of places for someone to work unnoticed, especially at night.
She sat back, rubbing her neck. Liam needed to see this. Just then, her phone chirped and Lina reached for it. A text message from Meg had just come in, addressed to both Lina and Liam on a group thread.
MEG: Good morning! Mrs. P requests your presence at her home at 9 AM. She has information regarding suitable locations.
Lina sat up, suddenly excited. If Mrs. P had narrowed down where Mrs. E might attempt her summoning, that changed everything. And Mrs. P was the perfect person to ask about her discoveries and assumptions about Wardenclyffe. She would know if Tesla had built on a nexus point or not.
Lina texted back a quick confirmation, noting that Liam had also answered in the affirmative.
Then she closed her laptop and jogged back upstairs to get ready.
They had an audience with Mrs. P and Lina wanted to dress appropriately.
She came back down a few minutes later, having changed out of her jeans and put on dress slacks.
Liam was already downstairs, waiting for her.
“Did you find anything useful in your research?” he asked in a friendly tone.
“Marguerite Ainsworth has been busy. Storage units, multiple PO boxes, purchases at occult supply shops. And get this. All of her safe houses and mail drops are within easy driving distance of the old Wardenclyffe site.”
Liam’s eyebrows rose. “Tesla’s tower?”
“What’s left of it, anyway. The tower itself was demolished a century ago, but the property is still there. There’s a big empty spot where the tower used to be, which would make a nice open place to summon something big. Mrs. P mentioned places of power. I think that might be one of them.”
“Makes sense. If she needs a significant power source for that summoning spell, the old Tesla site would be ideal. The man was literally trying to harness energy from the earth itself,” Liam said.
“Exactly what I was thinking.” Lina felt the familiar thrill of pieces clicking together. “I was going to suggest we scout it today, but—”
“But Mrs. Peabody beat you to it.” Liam held up his phone that was showing the text from Meg. “Looks like the old witch had the same idea. How much do you want to bet she’s going to tell us to check out Wardenclyffe?”
Lina chuckled, shaking her head. “I’m not going to take that bet. The woman is spooky.”
The easy rhythm of their partnership was becoming second nature now.
They were beginning to work in tandem without conscious effort.
She’d never experienced that with any new partner.
Something about her and Liam just clicked, and she wasn’t going to think about that too closely just yet.
It had to mean something. Possibly something very significant.
But they’d both agreed. Those kinds of thoughts were for later.
After they’d successfully completed this mission.
Then why did her lynx want to yowl in distress every time she told it to wait?