Read Online Secrets on Cedar Key by Terri Dulong - Free Book Online

Are you still there?”
    â€œYes,” I whispered. “I’m here.”
    â€œNot that hearing something like this in person would make any of it easier, but I hate having to do this by telephone.”
    He was right. Finding out something like this would not have been one bit easier in person, but without seeing his face, I focused more strongly on his voice. And I couldn’t deny the compassion I heard.
    I swiped away the tears that had started to fall. “It’s not your fault,” I said. “It’s certainly not your fault. I need some answers, though. I need to know about this . . . girl. This Fiona Caldwell. How old is she? Does she live in Boston? Does she know Andrew is her father? Was he still in touch with her mother?” I felt the questions tumbling out of me as my tears subsided and the natural desire for answers took over.
    â€œI don’t know the entire story,” he said. “Andrew and I were classmates in college, but we had lost touch until he contacted me about this situation, so I’ll tell you what I know. Fiona is not a child. She turned nineteen this past April, born . . .”
    I heard him rustling through papers.
    â€œAh, I have the file here. Born April 22, 1994.”
    My mind did a quick calculation. April of 1994. That would mean she was conceived in July of 1993. Andrew and I were married. Jason would have been five years old and John three. I couldn’t think beyond that.
    â€œWhat else?” I questioned. “How did Andrew know the mother? Where did she live?”
    â€œFrom what I recall Andrew telling me, Bianca Caldwell was a colleague of his. They had both been teaching a course at the same college. She did live in Amherst, Massachusetts, when he first came to me. About five years later she relocated north of Boston to Marblehead.”
    Amherst. The summer of 1993. A teaching position that Andrew had been offered. Could it be possible? While I stayed behind in Gainesville to care for our two sons, he was having an affair with another woman?
    â€œAnd did Andrew continue seeing her? Did he visit . . . his daughter?”
    â€œI can’t answer that for sure, but I think not. That was why he came to me. He wanted to set up an account to provide for the child until age eighteen. So I can assume he had no further contact with either the mother or the daughter. All of the financial arrangements were done through my office and the Boston Bank and Trust Company.”
    â€œBut I don’t understand,” I said. “If he was providing money for that girl’s support, why is there still fifty thousand dollars in the account?”
    I heard the attorney clear his throat. “Well, over the eighteen years Bianca Caldwell only withdrew a portion of what the balance was, and I have no idea why she never took the full amount, which continued to grow monthly, and it accumulated interest as well. But as my letter stated, sadly, Bianca Caldwell was killed in a car crash in April. That was one of the stipulations that Mr. Kane had put in place. If anything were to happen to Bianca Caldwell, he was to be notified, we would send him the required documents to be signed, and the balance of the account would be put in Fiona Caldwell’s name.”
    â€œIt seems my dearly departed husband thought of everything,” I said and heard my sarcasm. “Except factoring in his own death. So now what?”
    â€œThis is where it becomes a little complicated. Because you are his legal spouse and next of kin, it now becomes necessary for us to obtain your signature on the documents.”
    I couldn’t suppress the chuckle that bubbled forth. “So you mean to tell me that my signature is what stands between my husband’s love child, this Fiona Caldwell, receiving the handsome sum of fifty thousand dollars and getting nothing?”
    There was a pause on the other end of the line. “That’s precisely what I’m