Mercy (Atlee Pine #4)(36)

Buckley’s father had led a large group of followers who believed in segregation based on race and ethnicity, independence from outside laws and social mores, and adherence to a code of conduct that extended to all members, except the senior Buckley. He was free to do what he wanted, and to whom he wanted, because he was the leader, the chosen one, the man with a vision.

And they had also trafficked in stolen property, and sold drugs and guns, because the money was necessary to fund their preferred way of life.

However, the federal government had come calling one night after some bodies were found. The dead were people who had once followed, but now disagreed vehemently with, Buckley Sr. And he had responded not with words but with guns, knives, and ropes. And shallow graves for prematurely and violently ended lives.

And the feds had destroyed his father for it, for merely standing up for what he believed in. Not nice, thought Peter Buckley. But then there were many not nice people in the world.

After his father’s death and his mother’s abandoning them, he, as the oldest sibling but still a child himself, had taken over the leadership role with respect to his remaining family. When he reached adulthood he had spent all his time expanding on his father’s ambitions in a far more sophisticated way, choosing to learn from his father’s mistakes rather than repeating them.

Over the years, he had created a far greater empire, and hidden the criminal elements of it behind a complex web of entities. At the same time, he had inserted himself into the fabric of mainstream society behind a consortium of perfectly normal businesses, while also building a reputation as a philanthropist. He supported myriad candidates for political office and had many friends who held both high and more mundane offices. He had found that only the latter could actually accomplish the things he needed done. Power at the national level was hopelessly gridlocked. But if you needed a residential development approved, or wanted the contract for garbage pickup, or required rezoning for a commercial project, the locals were far more powerful than even the president of the United States.

Several years before, he had bought back the land on which his family’s compound had been situated, and he had rebuilt some of the facilities. He had put in a private airstrip and would fly in there from time to time, and stay there all alone for a few days. He would walk the site, sleep in the facsimile of the house in which he had been raised, and imagine how life could have been had the law not destroyed the Buckleys. That was his therapy, his respite from a world that he had learned to dominate on his terms but also would never truly belong to.

He had tried in vain to teach his brothers that real change meant playing the game until you got to the point where you controlled the game. Outsiders did not make real change. You had to become an insider, and you did so through a series of steps: ingratiate, annex, dominate, and then consolidate. Let the changes be so incremental that they would never see what really was coming until it was far too late.

However, his ill-educated brothers had not listened to their older sibling’s advice. Since his teens Ken had been in prison. He had only been recently released from his last stint for another stupid and meaningless crime. Ken was particularly unteachable, his skin tatted with crap he probably didn’t even understand. He was a loser and not really worth worrying about.

His sisters, like their mother, had abandoned the family when they reached adulthood. Buckley had never forgiven them. He had also never married or had a serious relationship with a woman, because he knew them to be totally untrustworthy. When he required sex, he paid for it. The night passed and the lady was not there in the morning. And that suited him just fine.

But Ken was still family, so Buckley did worry about him. When he got the call about what had happened from a police officer who had found his phone number among Ken’s personal belongings, he had flown in on his jet two hours later. He had sat through Ken’s first surgery. And he had gone to the motel to find out what had happened, and had also spoken to the local police.

A woman, of course, had done this to his brother. A tall, strong woman who had given no name and paid for her room in cash. She had told the woman at the motel that she was an undercover cop. Yet the police had no knowledge of her; Buckley, in his friendly, nonthreatening way, had asked for details about this, and the police had been very accommodating because Buckley was Ken’s brother and looked and acted eminently respectable. So the woman had lied. And she had nearly killed Ken. Buckley had also confirmed that the woman had done all this to Ken with her bare hands. A formidable woman, physically, because Ken was no lightweight when it came to a brawl.

The surgeon had said that they would have to run more tests and do more imaging to make certain there would be no lasting damage to his body or his brain.

Buckley would take care of his little brother, even if it meant hiring people to change his diaper and feed him through a straw. And the woman needed to be found and punished appropriately. In Buckley’s mind, there was no other possible outcome.

He left the hospital, climbed into a rented Mercedes, and drove back over to the motel. He was a man who was usually driven places, but he had come here alone. This was family business. When others needed to be called in, he would call them in. First, he had to do some more digging.

And a thought had occurred to him.

Beth, the woman at the motel’s front desk, seemed pleased to see him again.

“Have they caught her yet? I gave a description.”

“Unfortunately, no. But when I was here last time I noted the camera out front. Is it functioning?”