The Willard Read Online Free PDF

wondering when he’d be able to get some shuteye himself. “Here comes your goodnight kiss, ready?”
    “Ready!”
    Calvin made an exaggerated “mmmwwwwaahhh” sound with a proper lip smack at the end and sent the kiss flying through space to his home in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Little Will received it with a grunt.
    “That one nearly knocked me over!”
    “That’s great. Now kiss your mother and hit those sheets, bud.”
    “Night, Dad. Love you.”
    “Love you too, pal.” Calvin waited until he heard the click of the phone. He had already said goodnight to his wife and his two daughters. Will always insisted he had to be the last one to talk to Dad whenever he was traveling. His older sisters teased him about it but he didn’t care. It was their thing and ifDad had to travel, and he often did, this was just how it had to be done.
    Calvin Walker didn’t relish the time he spent away from home but it was the price of the success he had achieved with his company, Diagnosis Digital. “DD,” as he called it, had started as a simple software program back when guys with names like Gates and Jobs had just started to make a name for themselves and the field was still wide open. While he hadn’t built a Microsoft or an Apple in his garage, he had developed a program that could be found in virtually every doctor’s office and hospital in the country. Over the next twenty years, Diagnosis Digital would create software, hardware, and integrated strategies for medical practices that could give a one or two-doctor office the tools that were normally out of reach because of cost. DD had helped level the playing field and the newest offering on the table was designed to help small offices manage the extensive red tape and paperwork related to insurance. Walker was in Washington for a conference at George Washington University to get the word out to the medical community and he had spent the past four days pressing the flesh and demonstrating his product. He had made a good impression, as always, and now he could turn it over to his sales team. It had been a productive week so far.
    Before he could go home he had to tie up some loose ends with regard to a new product the company had in development. For some reason there were issues with the patent application and he and his attorney planned to meet with a representative at the U.S. Patent Office the following day. His engineers had been sending him e-mails with reams of proprietary data and he had to familiarize himself with the case they needed to make. It was the kind of reading that could be counted on to cross a few eyes, and Walker was already worn out, but coffee was out of the question. He knew he wouldn’t settle down for hours if he succumbed to the coffee crutch.
    Just an hour on the summary page Dan sent this afternoon and I should be good to go. Two, tops. Still in bed at a decent hour
.
    Three hours later Walker was craving coffee more than ever, but it was after midnight and way too late now for a pick-me-up. He jotted a few notes and settled back in the chair by the bed to knock out the last few pages. The last thing he read was a mind-numbing technical explanation of an online database management component.
    The sound of a siren at seven-thirty in the morning jolted Walker from his sleep and he jumped up from the chair only to quickly realize his back hadn’t fared well during the night. Sleeping in a chair all night is for college students cramming for finals. Forty-seven-year-old men are better off sticking to high-quality mattresses.
    Fortunately, he wasn’t late. After a hot shower he dressed in his last clean suit, packed his briefcase, and headed for the elevator. He planned to stop in the hotel’s café downstairs and pick up some chocolate biscotti he had discovered the morning after he arrived at the Willard. And, finally, he could have that cup of coffee he’d been wanting all night.
    He stepped out of room number 828 and started down the hall.