“I guess I should be glad he was hunting alone,” Buford said.
Jane knew that Lester and Danny had a history with their father. The man had been the local drunk when they were children, but he also had a penchant for felonies. It was Buford Percy who had been the worst his family had to offer, and Lester and Danny had never been able to crawl out from beneath his shadow. If circumstances had been different for Lester and Danny growing up, Jane suspected they really could have been something.
But one fatal accident changed the course of both Lester and Danny, and Ben Riker. It had been Buford Percy that was drunk and behind the wheel, causing the crash that killed Ben Riker’s parents and imprisoned Burford.
“That doesn’t answer the question,” Jane said, her shock thawing, and she stepped forward. “Why are you here?”
“I told him about what we’re trying to do,” Danny said. “He thinks it’s a good idea, and he wants to help.”
“Help himself, you mean,” Lester said. “That’s all he’s ever done, Danny. You think prison changed him? If anything, it made him worse!”
“I know you have your doubts about me, Lester,” Buford said. “You have every right to hate me. But fate has brought us a new opportunity. There are no more criminal records, no more authority to track us down, nothing but what you’re strong enough to take. It’s like living in the old days, where fortune favors the strong. And you are strong. All of you are.”
Jane knew that Buford Percy was a formidable man. But she had never been intimidated by him, even after all the stories Lester had told her about his childhood. Because Jane had been through hell herself growing up. Buford Percy might’ve been a mean son of a bitch, but he wasn’t the devil.
“And so you come here to help us,” Jane said though she remained skeptical. “How do you expect to do that?”
“I have developed quite a following during my time in prison,” Buford answered. “After the power turned off, I managed to get a group of men and me out of our cells.”
“Well,” Lester said, taking a few steps forward, “let me save you a lot of time and frustration and tell you that you can get the hell out of here. We don’t need your help. We don’t want your help.”
“I understand your hesitation in trusting me,” Buford said. “But I think with our combined strength, we could become unstoppable. Think about it, Lester. Our family has been spit on for generations. This is our opportunity to take back everything that we lost. This could be our one chance at redemption. What else could it be other than fate for this to happen now? We shouldn’t waste the future that’s been handed to us on a silver platter.”
“That’s certainly a beautiful sentiment,” Jane said, speaking up for her husband before he said anything more detrimental to their cause. “But running with a bunch of ex-cons isn’t exactly going to change the image of the Percy family, is it?”
“A lot of my guys didn’t do anything but burglary,” Buford said. “They might have a temper, but they aren’t killers. They are reliable guys who are trying to find their way just like us.”
“You’re so full of shit,” Lester said. “You’d say anything to get us to agree to this.”
Buford frowned. “You don’t think I’ve changed? What was stopping me from marching over to this place the moment I found out who was here and what you guys are doing? You’re not the only ones with bones to pick against the Riker family. I definitely have more fighting men than you do, and it wouldn’t take very long to find some weapons to take you guys out. I could have overrun this place, but I chose to come to speak with you first. I don’t want to be your enemy.”
“A little too late for that,” Lester said.
Jane knew how much her husband hated his father. She wasn’t privy to the complete complicated history of the relationship, but she knew enough to know that Lester wasn’t going to budge on his feelings about his father, but this was an opportunity that Jane could use to their advantage if she could get Lester on board.
“Buford, why don’t you step outside for a second while we discuss this as a family,” Jane said.
Lester immediately turned toward Jane, and she could see the shock and betrayal in his face. The fact that Jane even wanted to discuss this meant that she was considering keeping him around, and Lester found that unacceptable.
“I can sneak him back into the woods,” Danny said.
Danny checked to make sure the coast was clear, and then collected Buford. As the big man moved past both of them, Jane could have cut the tension in the small space with a knife. But the moment Buford was gone, and it was only Jane and Lester, Jane knew that her husband was relieved he no longer had to be in the same room as his father.
“I can’t believe what you’re doing,” Lester said, shaking his head.
“We have to look at this from every angle,” Jane said. “We could use Buford to our advantage, and if he has the numbers he says he does, that will tip the scales in our favor.”
Lester laughed. “You can’t trust him. He will say anything and do anything to get what he wants.”
“And what do you think he wants?” Jane asked.
“I don’t know,” Lester shrugged and flapped his arms at his sides. He paced nervously back and forth in short strides. “All I know is every time he’s gotten involved in my life, it’s taken a turn for the worse.”
Jane chose her next words very carefully. She didn’t want to push Lester too far over the edge to the point where they couldn’t agree on anything. They needed to be a united front on
