Chapter 13
Chapter Title: The Perfect Disguise
Kathy
After Nina Simone’s final note faded into silence, a hush settled over Kimberly’s living room like the house itself had stopped breathing. I reached for the manila folder Chief Morgan had given me and laid its contents across the small wooden coffee table, pushing aside two mismatched coasters and the half-burnt sandalwood candle perched on top. The paper edges fanned out like tarot cards, waiting to be read, waiting to tell me what had happened to my sister.
The sunlight streaming through the front windows was bright, but the air felt dim. The shadows of Kimberly’s fern plants twitched against the wall like restless fingers, their movements sharp, agitated—alive. Her home still carried her scent, that familiar mix of vanilla and cinnamon, a ghost from her bakery lingering stubbornly in the air as though refusing to admit she was gone.
The walls were bare. No family photos. No graduation certificates. No evidence of a life built, only the echo of one carefully managed. If you didn’t already know her, you’d never guess who lived here. And maybe that was the point. Kimberly was private. Strategic. A woman who knew how to erase her trail before anyone thought to follow it.
Strategic...
I slid the bracelet I’d recovered from the warehouse out of my pocket. The metal was warm from my skin, its tiny lock still intact, not broken. That detail mattered. Kimberly hadn’t lost this by accident—she’d left it. A breadcrumb, a plea, a warning. And I was the one who found it.
Good.
I turned my attention back to the spread of documents before me. Hank’s report and statement sat on top, thick with detail, but too neat.
According to him, Kimberly left her car at the Williamson estate after dinner and took an Uber home. Later that evening, she ordered another Uber, this time to Delish—the club downtown where half the town was celebrating the Stars and Stripes Fest. Hank claimed she met up with a certain Emma Morgan and a few friends.
His proof? A text from Emma confirming Kimberly’s arrival—and her state. “Drinking heavily,” the message read.
Emma Morgan. She was also one of the two witnesses who saw Kimberly last. I circled the name with my pen. Morgan. Same last name as Chief Morgan. That couldn’t be coincidence. Was Emma his daughter? Niece? Family ties made things messy, especially in small towns like this. Messy meant dangerous.
Hank also claimed Kimberly had two glasses of wine and a whiskey before leaving the estate. The detail seemed oddly specific. Especially since the next thing he mentioned was a closed-door meeting between Kimberly and his mother, Divine Williamson, before dinner.
Divine.
The name gave me pause.
I sifted through the fire incident report again. Leased to a shell company Mirage Horizon Corp, but the owner of the property where the blaze occurred? Divine Wincroft.
My instincts flared.
Divine wasn’t a name people forgot. And Wincroft? That was a name from the Manhattan social registers, whispered at charity luncheons and fundraisers, tied to fortunes as old as the country itself.
Divine Wincroft. Divine Williamson. If this was the same woman, there were layers here, old money kind of layers. I needed to know what she was hiding—and why Kimberly met with her before vanishing.
I powered on my laptop and typed: Divine Wincroft Williamson.
The internet answered in seconds.
There she was.
A woman carved from marble and legacy. Chanel suit. Pearls at her throat. A ruby brooch sharp enough to cut. Steely eyes that didn’t just look into the camera—they assessed it, measured it, found it lacking.
Daughter of Jacob Wincroft Jr. from his third wife. Heiress to a real estate empire built on Manhattan skyscrapers and blood-slick contracts. Wife to Senator Henry Williamson II. Old money married to new ambition.
She wasn’t just a senator’s wife—she was the power behind the podium.
The society columns confirmed what I already suspected. It was Divine’s wealth that built the Williamson dynasty. While the Senator’s family had roots in Texas oil, it was her real estate fortune that bankrolled campaigns, secured influence, greased the right palms. Money so old it smelled of mahogany and mothballs.
According to the archived society notes, Henry and Divine met at Princeton, married soon after graduation. Henry Williamson climbed the ladder, became Chief of Staff to Senator Hill, and then slid into his own Senate seat with Divine’s money at his back. The rest, as they say, was gilded history.
But it was Divine who owned the mansion in Crisfield. Wincroft Mansion, formerly. Passed down after her father’s death, along with a sprawling portfolio of properties and an inheritance large enough to buy a small country—one that would eventually go to her only son, Henry Williamson III.
I opened a new tab and typed: Henry Williamson III.
Hank.
His photo came up—blond, cleft chin, that politician-in-the-making jawline, all-American smile. But that was all there was. No alma mater. No job history. No press releases. No Instagram, Facebook, not even a LinkedIn profile. For the son of a sitting U.S. Senator, he might as well have been a ghost.
Weird.
If he had political aspirations, he’d need a digital footprint—a carefully curated one. Handshakes with veterans, charitable events at a children's cancer ward, staged visits with puppies at shelters—anything. Instead he had nothing. No past. No flaws. No fingerprints.
That’s not normal. Not in today’s world.
I tried another search: Williamson and Hastings nuptials.
If this wedding was real, Divine would’ve made sure it was documented—if not to the world, then at least to the local elite. Weddings in dynasties like this weren’t about love—they were business transactions, mergers dressed in white lace.
There it was. A tiny announcement in the Crisfield Post.
Henry Williamson III proposed to Kimberly Hastings during the annual Thanksgiving banquet held at the Williamson estate. Guests report the moment as heartfelt and emotional.
A grainy photo showed Hank kneeling on one knee, Kimberly’s hands covering her mouth in shock. The room blurred with sequined gowns and raised glasses.
Kimberly looked… radiant. Like starlight caught in fabric, joy etched across her face. But something about the photo made my stomach knot. The way the moment felt final. Like the seconds before a trap closes.
I zoomed in.
There was Divine in the background. Impeccable. Hair perfect. Lipstick precise. Not smiling. Not clapping. Watching.
Not like a mother. Like a queen approving a business merger.
I clicked deeper into her profile. Gala photos. Political donations. Development projects. Charity boards. Each one a carefully staged move, a tile in the mosaic of her control. Not one scandal. Not one misplaced detail.
So why Kimberly? Why pull her into a dynasty that demanded perfection?
A girl from Delmarva with flour on her jeans and a tiny bakery to her name. A woman with no dynasty, no legacy, no millions tucked into offshore accounts.
Unless that was the point.
Kimberly was perfect. Too perfect.
No mistakes. No messy exes. No unpaid bills. No angry blog posts from a roommate. No flaws.
And that was the problem.
No one is that clean. Unless they’ve been scrubbed. Or unless they’re hiding something so messy it had to be buried.
I shifted back to the fire report.
The warehouse Divine owned burned down quickly. Arson suspected. Nothing left but ash. But the investigators had noted boxes, tire tracks, a smartphone… and a footprint.
Size twelve. Boots. Male. Height estimate: 5’10” to 6’1”.
Someone had been there. Someone who wasn’t supposed to be.
I stared at Divine’s face one more time on the screen.
She wasn’t the type to get her hands dirty. She didn’t need to. She had money. Money bought silence. Money bought loyalty. Money erased mistakes.
So maybe she didn’t kill Kimberly.
Maybe she just made her disappear.
And maybe she torched the evidence.
Insurance fraud and abduction cover. A tidy solution, dressed in Chanel and plausible deniability.
The theory was insane. But not impossible.
I leaned back on Kimberly’s couch, the sandalwood candle faint against the lingering bakery-sweet air. My temples throbbed with questions. What had been in that warehouse? Why burn it? And what exactly had Divine wanted from Kimberly in that closed-door meeting?
The clock on the wall read 11:43 a.m. Too early to go sniffing around the ruins again. That would have to wait for nightfall.
I grabbed my phone. Dialed Chen.
“Still waiting on that info,” I said.
“I’m digging,” he replied. His voice carried the faint crackle of static. “They’re squeaky clean, but I’m going through the financials. And wow—they own a lot.”
“Can you dig into Henry Williamson III?” I asked. “I need school records, roommates, professors, anything. He doesn’t exist online. That’s not normal.”
He gave a low whistle. “Things just got interesting. I’ll call you when I’ve got something.”
“Thanks.”
I hung up, stared at the notes again. Kimberly’s life was unraveling into a puzzle with too many missing pieces.
Emma Morgan’s name caught my eye again. I typed it in.
A boutique popped up. Local. Small. Family-run.
I wrote the address down on a scrap of paper.
Shower. Lunch. Then shopping.
Because sometimes the only way to peel back the perfect disguise is to see what cracks when you press hard enough.