Read Online Primitive Secrets by Deborah Turrell Atkinson - Free Book Online

reading of the will, aren’t you?”
    Storm glanced at her watch and nodded.
    â€œHave you seen it? When he was alive?”
    â€œNot recently, but I don’t expect many surprises. Uncle Miles was straightforward about money. He wanted all his kids to be economically self-sufficient.”
    â€œThat sounds like him.” Wo also looked at her watch. “Did Hamasaki ever tell you about a cancer patient? I can’t remember the person’s name and was hoping you might know.”
    â€œA malpractice case?”
    â€œI don’t know. Hamasaki told me he wanted me to look over some medical charts on a guy. I got the impression he didn’t know if the patient had a case or not.” She sighed. “I never heard any more about it.”
    â€œI haven’t seen a reference to a patient in any of his papers.” Storm thought of the paper with Dr. O’Toole’s name and phone numbers, but didn’t mention it. Not only had Hamasaki and O’Toole been old friends who golfed together twice a week, but Hamasaki had helped O’Toole with a rancorous divorce a few years ago. The notes could refer to anything.
    Wo got up to go. “I guess it was one of Hamasaki’s passing thoughts.”
    â€œWish I knew something.” Storm got up and walked down the hall with her. Wo’s office was across the corridor from the conference room.
    Wo looked sideways at Storm. “How’s Cunningham treating you?” she asked.
    â€œHe hardly ever talks to me. Wang can be a little tough, though,” Storm said.
    â€œHe’s a detail man.” Wo nodded toward the room. “Looks like everyone’s there. I’ll see you later.” She headed into her own office and closed the door.
    Storm entered the conference room, gave Aunt Bitsy a hug and shared embraces with Michelle. She had to explain her black eyes to the women. David stood up and nodded while Martin pulled the chair out next to his.
    Lorraine fussed in the corner with a coffee and teacart, and when Cunningham entered, she headed toward the door. Cunningham smoothed one side of his carefully arranged silver hair and motioned Lorraine to an empty chair. “Please join us,” he said. “You’re mentioned in the will, also.” He stood at the end of the long table and smiled down on the small group. “Let’s get started. It’s not a complicated will and most of you probably know what’s in it.”
    For Storm, the will held a few surprises, mostly good ones. The first was that Hamasaki’s estate was bigger than she had expected. With the oceanfront home, which had appreciated astronomically over the last twenty years, he left his wife a combination of assets worth over twenty million dollars. His pension fund, mostly in blue-chip stocks, was worth about four million and he also had quite a bit tied up in commercial real estate properties.
    Storm sat back in her chair, a little smile on her face. He’d mentioned interest in a few shopping centers and office buildings, but she hadn’t been paying full attention to his low-level flow of information. He had also left Lorraine ten thousand a year in a mutual fund for the three decades of what he called their “partnership.” It was worth well over a million dollars, now.
    Storm knew that when the Hamasakis took her in at sixteen, they had established a trust fund for her as they had for each of their natural children. David’s, Michelle’s, and Martin’s were started at birth and the Hamasakis had put together well-rounded portfolios that had appreciated over the years to hundreds of thousands of dollars per child. Storm’s, of course, was smaller than the others’ because it had been started later, but she still was left almost two hundred grand.
    When Cunningham read the dollar amounts of the funds, everyone smiled with pleasant surprise. It’s hard not to be pleased when someone