The Keepers of the Library Read Online Free PDF Page A

like-minded women who took to her stories of quirky love, abandonment, and randomness. It hadn’t hurt her career that she was Will Piper’s daughter; some of her fans combed through her books as if they were sacred texts looking for hidden truths about 2027, a subject she had long embraced.
    Her son Nick was an only child, a few months older than Phillip. It had always been a source of family tension that Will’s son and grandson were the same age. Laura had made no secret of her opinion that Nick had drawn the short straw and had been deprived of the unfettered attention of his grandfather. Nevertheless,Will genuinely liked the kid, always had, and on Nick’s infrequent visits to Florida, found him a better fishing buddy than his son. But ever since he went off to boarding school in New Hampshire, they rarely saw each other.
    His son-in-law, Greg Davis, was his usual saturnine self and during the visit, the two men exchanged a single obligatory bear hug and few words. The animus was largely one-sided—Will didn’t particularly love the guy but he certainly never disliked him. If Greg was good enough for his daughter, he was good enough for him.
    The difficulties lay with Greg’s chronic disappointment and his belief that his career might have blossomed if Will had only been more helpful.
    Will had always rejected the notion out of hand. When Greg was a junior staff reporter at
The Washington Post
back in 2011, hadn’t he handed the kid the scoop of the century? Hadn’t Greg become instantly famous as the journalist who first reported the existence of the Library of Vectis and Area 51? Hadn’t he landed a Pulitzer Prize? Was it Will’s fault that Greg’s plans to write the book of books about the Library got shot down by a Supreme Court ruling that compelled the
Post
to cease and desist and return Will’s pirated copy of the US database to the government? Was it his fault that Greg was forced to adhere to the government’s nondisclosure agreement? Was it Will’s fault that publishers fell all over themselves to get their mitts on
his
book about the Doomsday case?
    Greg had left the
Post
after the Supreme Court verdict and ridden his journalistic notoriety for a while with jobs at the
New York Times
, then a succession of magazines and entrepreneurial publishing ventures, none of which had amounted to much. Hislatest project was a portfolio of NetZines aimed at immigrant communities living in America, and he and Laura lived in Brooklyn now, supported disproportionally by her novels.
    Will found the cake too challenging to swallow and just ate the icing. “Best thing I ever tasted,” he said.
    “When you get home, I’ll give you cake every day,” Nancy said.
    “Did they tell you how long they were keeping you in, Dad?” Laura asked.
    “No, but the doctor said that when the MyoStem takes as well as it has for me, the recovery is fast. I’d leave today if it were up to me.”
    “It’s not up to you,” Nancy said sternly.
    He changed the subject. “Been able to write?” he asked his daughter.
    “I’ve been a little distracted.”
    “How about you, Greg. How’s your business getting on?”
    Greg had carried his angular body and sharp-featured face into middle age, but his curly mass of hair had wilted away. The dome of his head was now bony and geographic. The question seemed to animate him. “We’ve been busy, crazy busy, because of Nancy’s thing. Extra editions, you name it.”
    Nancy looked at Greg sharply.
    “What thing?” Will asked.
    “Nothing,” she said, shooting Greg a dirty look. “I’ll tell you later. It’s nothing we need to talk about right now.”
    Ordinarily, Will wouldn’t let a comment like that go—he’d dog it until he had an answer, but he was too weak and foggy to pursue it. He let the bone drop from his teeth.
    He called his son over. The boy took a few paces into the room. “I hear you’re staying with Andy.”
    Phillip nodded.
    “How’s that working out?