CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
I lifted the barrel of my rifle toward the blond woman as she flew through the air. I caught a glimpse of a knife in her right hand and managed to get a single shot off before that hand made contact with my head. The woman, Kerry Levy, I assumed, landed square on top of me, sending the pair of us to the blacktop. The rifle’s strap ripped from my shoulder and the gun flew from my grip. My back thumped off the ground. My head hit next, with a cracking sound that smacked in my ears and caused my vision to blacken.
I felt the woman mounting my chest, and I shook my head, trying to clear my vision. I saw a blur of her through blood in my left eye as my right eye clearly saw her about to drop a knife into my face in an overhand grip. I jerked my head to the right as fast and as hard as I could. I saw her hand come down, closed my eyes, and felt the blade slide across the bone on the left side of my face. I heard the smack of the tip against the blacktop through my burning left ear. Searing pain and the warmth of blood spilling from my face took over my senses. I fought it away as I felt her yank the knife up for another blow. I opened my eyes, only being able to see from the right one, and balled my free right fist hard enough to turn coal into diamonds. I put as much into a punch as I could. Her teeth cracked against my knuckles, and her head snapped back. Her weight on my chest rolled back enough to allow me to lean up and deliver a forearm to the side of her head. The momentum of my strike sent her off of me. She hit the ground beside me with her left hand clenching her jaw.
I rolled away from her and got my knees under me. For the brief second I was on all fours and looking down, a steady stream of blood poured from my face and pooled on the blacktop. I could feel more blood running from the back of my head down the nape of my neck. I caught the blur of someone else running toward me and the woman from around the far side of the diner. I reached down and pulled my service weapon from the holster on the front of my vest as I spun on my knees to stand. Before I could get my legs under myself, the blade cut through the air inches from my face. I yanked my head back and fell to a seated position on the blacktop. She dove at me with the blade, and I fired a pair of shots center mass as she leapt. She landed on my legs, the knife still in her hand. I felt someone grab my shoulders and yank me by my tactical vest away from the woman. I looked left, and through the blood pooled in my eye, I could see the outline of a thick black watch coming from the sleeve of a suit—Bill.
I stared forward through vision that kept blurring and refocusing in my right eye. Beth was cuffing the woman, who was lying face down. Blood was puddling at the woman’s sides. Bill released his grip from my shoulders and came around my right side to kneel before me. A second later, Scott came to my left, then Beth stood in the space directly before me. The three stared at me, saying nothing.
“How bad?” I asked.
“Stay with him.” Beth jogged toward the street. “We need a damn ambulance now!”
Bill and Scott didn’t move. They both stared at me, stone faced.
I glanced down at my chest and squinted hard. The entire front of my blue FBI vest was saturated in blood. I put a hand on the blacktop and pushed myself up, getting one foot underneath me and then the other.
“That’s three out of four,” I said.
“Three out of four what?” Bill asked.
“Crazy-ass women from this psycho family trying to kill me in the last hour.” I swayed as I got to my feet—the blow to the back of my head had knocked me for a loop.
“Just sit, Hank. We’re going to get you some help,” Scott said.
“Nah, I need to see.” I shook my head with the words and saw blood droplets flying through the air as I did. The quick movement of my head sent a shot of pain through the back of my eye sockets.
“Just sit, dammit,” Scott snapped.
I ignored his request and started toward the diner. I stumbled through the doorway, having to catch my balance on the sill. My left ear burned. The left side of my face burned. The area over my left eye burned. The back of my head throbbed. I could feel blood drops hanging from my chin.
“Where are you trying to go?” Bill asked from behind me.
I hadn’t noticed he and Scott were following me inside.
“Bathroom,” I said.
I felt their grip on both shoulders of my suit jacket as I walked to the door at the back of the diner. Scott reached out and yanked the door open. I put a hand on each side of the sink, turned on the faucet, and grabbed a handful of water. I splashed it into my left eye, which was still there, thank God, and tried to wash the blood from it. I put my knuckle into it to clear the water, which sent pain shooting through my entire face. I stared into the bathroom mirror and squinted, trying to get focus.
I looked at the damage I’d taken from the woman. My face, from my left eye socket to my ear, hung open half an inch. I imagined I’d be able to see skull if the wound wasn’t pouring blood. I also had a crossing slash from my forehead to my eyebrow from when she’d delivered the first strike when she came off of the roof.
“Karen is going to be pissed,” I said.
I put my fingers on the area and tried to push the hanging flesh of my face on the bottom side of the cut back up to meet the top side—more blood rolled from the wound.
“We have to get something on that,” Scott said. “Bill, grab us a towel or something.”
“Yeah.” He left the bathroom.
I turned my head to the right to get a better look at the damage to my ear. “Aw, that’s not good.”
My left ear was sliced into two pieces, straight through the center. I placed my fingers next to it and snapped them, testing whether I could still hear from it. The sound wasn’t normal though that could’ve been because my ear canal was probably filled with blood. I leaned toward the mirror closer for a better look—my entire ear was still there, just with an upper and lower section.
Bill came back through the doorway of the restroom with two kitchen towels. “I can’t find anything clean in this place,” he said. “We have one that smells like bacon and one that has some mystery crust on it.”
“Bacon.” I held out my right hand.
Bill passed me the towel, and I held it against the side of my face.
“Give me the other one,” Scott said.
I watched in the mirror as Scott tied the two ends together, fashioning a makeshift bandanna. He looped it over my forehead and snugged it down.
“We need to keep something on the back of that head too. It’s leaking pretty bad,” Scott said. “Let’s get you back out front. Hopefully, we’ll have some medics here shortly.”
Scott and Bill walked me back to the front of the diner and sat me at the edge of the booth nearest the front doors.
“Who’s shot outside?” I asked.
“Chris and Philben,” Bill said.
“How bad?” I asked.
“Chris took a round to the upper shoulder and one to his vest. The shoulder shot did some damage,” Scott said. “Philben was shot through the forearm and took a ricochet from the roof of the car to his face. Banged up but should be fine if we get them some damn medical attention. Let me go and see what the status is.” Scott left the edge of the table and walked through the front doors.
“What about that deputy?” I asked.
Bill didn’t respond.
I looked up at him standing at the far side of the booth, and he shook his head. I turned my head to get a look outside. Beth was jogging back toward the diner entry. She said a few words to Scott as she passed him then came through the diner’s front door and walked up to us.
“We’ll have someone here for you in a couple minutes, Hank,” she said.
“Make sure Philben and Chris are treated first,” I said.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
After an ambulance ride followed by a transfer to a different hospital and a cosmetic surgeon being flown in, I was patched up—at least for the time being. Ball had called my room numerous times to check on me and inform me that I was on me
dical leave until cleared to come back, which at the time sounded like weeks. Beth, Bill, and Scott popped in a few times to see how I was doing between wrapping up everything at the scenes and in the area. I caught bits and pieces of what was found on the Levy property but imagined I wouldn’t get the entire story until I was back at work.
I stayed an additional three days in the El Paso area, two of which were spent in a hospital bed. Karen had flown in as soon as Beth told her what had transpired. My final day in El Paso was also spent in the hospital before flying out. I stopped in by Philben, who was recovering. Philben was set to be released, his face bandaged similarly to mine from the ricochet gunshot wound that had opened up his cheek, his arm in a cast up to his elbow. He informed me that Chris had been shipped back to the Dallas area. I didn’t get to see him before I left Texas, but I planned to call and check on his recovery.
Our flight landed Karen and me back home Sunday afternoon. My presence at each of the airports, as well as on the plane itself, was met with long stares and quick looks away as soon as I made eye contact with my unwrapped right eye. I figured that was due to me looking like the invisible man with most of my head bandaged—a pair of sunglasses would have completed the look.
The cosmetic surgeon in Texas had referred me a to DC-area plastic surgeon. On Monday morning during my initial visit with the local doctor, named Norman, he informed me that additional work might be needed, but said he was confident he could make the scarring as unnoticeable as possible. Bill, Scott, Ball, and Beth had all stopped out at the house to check in on me—Beth twice—since I’d been back.
I sat on the front porch of our just-moved-into colonial, flipping through the newspaper. Porkchop lay near my feet on the porch, asleep and snoring. I’d been home a week and a day. The cover story of the paper I held was titled “Death in the Desert.” I’d read the article twice and found my eyes staring at a little box in the bottom right corner of the page, which listed a fatality count. I furrowed my brows, which caused the stitched skin under my bandages to pull. The tally the paper printed of those killed by the Levys was twenty-eight, not including those we could attribute to the girls in the past. The paper also didn’t include the lost agents or the local deputy who’d been killed. The paper stated the investigators found skeletal remains and planned to do full excavations of the Levy property.
I folded the paper up, set it beside me, and scratched at the bandages wrapping my head. I could have just as easily been a number in a tally in the newspaper on multiple occasions. A couple neighbors walked past on the street out front, looking over at me on the porch. I lifted my hand and gave them a wave. Their wave back seemed a bit delayed.
Karen walked from the front door of the house. “We should probably hit the road. Are you ready?”
“Yeah, I want to get these damn things off,” I said, “and get these stupid stitches out of my face. They itch.”
“And I want my husband back instead of a mummy,” Karen said.
I gave her a smile, stood, and looked down at the dog. “In the house, lazy.”
Porkchop lifted his head briefly then rolled onto his side, putting his head back down on the porch.
“Treats!” I said.
He scrambled to his feet and sat at attention.
“In the house.” I followed him inside and tossed him a couple of treats. “I’ll meet you at the truck,” I told Karen. “Just have to run upstairs quick.”
“Sure,” she said.
I grabbed what I needed from the house and locked up, and we left.
The local cosmetic surgeon’s office was a solid twenty-minute drive. Karen spent the time in the car filling me in on what the doctor would suggest and what things we could do at home to limit the amount of scarring—she’d spent most of the time since the injury researching online.
I sat on the table in Dr. Norman’s office. Karen sat in a chair against the wall a couple feet away. We’d been waiting on the doctor for just a couple minutes.
“Are you sure you want to watch this?” I asked. “You could probably just watch some television in the lounge or something.”
“I have some questions for the doctor,” Karen said.
I shrugged.
The door of the room opened, and a man with gray styled hair walked in. He was slim and in shape with a white lab coat over a blue dress shirt and patterned tie. He flashed me a smile, showing flawless veneers. Dr. Norman closed the door at his back, greeted Karen, and set his clipboard down on the table at the side of the room.
“How are we feeling, Hank?” he asked.
“Ready to get this crap off of my head and out of my face.”
“Ask and you shall receive.”
I sat patiently as Dr. Norman gloved up and placed supplies from the table on the surface of a rolling stainless-steel cart. He wheeled the cart over, parked it next to the table I was sitting on, and began unwrapping the bandages from my head. Karen stood and took a few steps closer to observe.
Dr. Norman set all the bandages on the tray and leaned in close to my face, inspecting the work the Texas plastic surgeon had done. He put his gloved fingers on the wounds and ran them from my left eye socket to my ear. “Hmm.” He squinted his eyes.
“Hmm?” I asked. “Is that a good hmm, or a bad hmm?”
I looked at Karen, who was stone faced.
“Well, let’s just keep moving along here, and then we’ll discuss it.”
The doctor’s hmm, as well as his subsequent comment didn’t instill much confidence.
Dr. Norman picked up small scissors and forceps from the tray and came at my face with both. I stared at Karen, standing a few feet away with her arms crossed over her chest. She winced every time the doctor cut a stitch and grimaced every time he pulled one from my face. The pain wasn’t too bad aside from a couple that seemed pretty content with staying attached to the skin of my face. Karen’s facial expressions continued.
Doctor Norman placed each removed stitch in a small oval dish. What seemed like a good half hour later, he set the scissors and forceps down and weaved his head around my face again, inspecting the affected area. He took a step back from me and cracked his knuckles together. “So, do you want the good news or the bad news first?”
“Good, I guess,” I said.
“Well, I don’t think that we’ll need to do any more work with the cuts present on your face. Dr. Treadwell in Texas did a remarkable job. You’re going to have a little nick and some slight deformity to your ear, which we can try to address if needed. The scarring on your face”—he touched the areas—“that’s going to decrease with time. There are a couple of creams that we can get you set up with that will help with that. The small marks from the stitches themselves should disappear pretty quickly.”
“That all sounds pretty good. What’s the bad news?” I asked.
“Within a couple months, your face should look pretty close to how it did before.”
Karen snorted.
“Funny,” I said with a smirk.
Dr. Norman grabbed a mirror and held it out toward me. I took it from him and got a look at my face. From my hairline down to my left eyebrow was an eighth-of-an-inch stripe of scar. Small dots from where the stitches had entered and exited followed the stripe. From my left eye socket, across the top of my cheekbone and to my ear was another scar of similar width. Both areas were puffy and pink from healing and the process of the stitch removal. The edge of my ear in the center was notched in, and something just seemed a touch off in the overall shape. While I could probably live with it, I imagined Karen would take only a few days before she began to get on me about having it addressed.
“Okay. Let’s get the hardware out of the back of your head. A couple staples, a couple stitches, and we’ll get you out of here.”
Dr. Norman went to my back, and I dipped my head forward so he could begin.
“Now, we went over the concussion stuff when you first arrived. Been having any lingering affects?” he asked.
; “Nothing,” I said.
“Good.”
I could feel him tugging at something attached to my scalp, which was shaved in the area they’d patched me up—a staple, I assumed.
“When can I go back to work?” I asked.
“Depends on what you’ll be doing.”
“Field work,” I said.
“Anything physical, and I’d give it a couple weeks,” Dr. Norman said.
“What about desk duty?” I asked.
“You don’t need to rush back,” Karen said.
“I’d just like to be able to give work a time frame,” I said.
“We’ll schedule you another appointment for a week from now and go from there,” the doctor said.
“Fair enough.”
I went quiet and let Doctor Norman finish removing things from my head. He gave me some care instructions and scheduled me a follow-up visit after he concluded. We left the doctor’s office twenty minutes later.
Karen and I hopped in the truck in the parking lot.
“Head to the pharmacy and grab the stuff the doctor suggested?” Karen asked.
“Let’s shoot over to the Manassas office quick. I just want to pop in for a few minutes.”
“For? You’re on leave, remember?”
“I just want to stop in for a second. Fifteen minutes max,” I said.
“Don’t you need your ID to get in?”
I patted the pocket on my jeans. “I have it.”
Karen rolled her eyes. “Oh, the I have to run upstairs real quick.”
“I’m a preplanner.”
“And if we just go home, you’re going to get in your truck and drive there, aren’t you?”
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