I take in a deep breath and smell earth. It calms me, at least a bit. He takes my hand and I clutch at him, pulling our joined hands down to my lap so Corwin can’t see. I’m not worried about Corwin’s opinion of us, but we’re in a place that is not our home. I don’t want people to turn hostile.
Corwin sits across the table, folds his glasses, then puts them in a pocket in his suit jacket. He cracks his knuckles and glances between the two of us before focusing on me. “I was glad to get your call, kid. Didn’t think anything would come of it.”
“Why did you stop in Roseland that day?” I ask, curious.
A strange look comes over Corwin’s face. It almost looks like he’s embarrassed. He cracks his knuckles again and sighs. “You know what? I don’t know if I can answer that.”
My eyes widen as I lean forward. “Like, it’s top secret or something?” I almost consider looking around to see if there are any spies listening in. I still have my sunglasses in my pocket. Should I put them back on?
He laughs. “No, kid. Not anything like that. It just sounds… weird.” He pauses as a waitress comes over and sets another cup of coffee on the table. He lifts the cup and drinks it black.
Cal makes a face. “I don’t see how you guys can drink that. I told Benji I wouldn’t like it and I didn’t. It’s gross.” He scowls as he takes a drink of his juice as if to prove his point.
“It puts hair on your chest,” Corwin tells him.
“Already got it,” Cal says proudly, and I have to grab his shirt before he pulls it up to show Corwin just how much hair he has. Corwin looks at the two of us like we’re the oddest things he’s laid his eyes on. If only he knew what weird really is, I think. Hell, he’s the FBI. They probably know everything about angels already. And aliens.
“Why was it weird?” I ask Corwin as Cal grabs my hand again.
Corwin has to drag his eyes away from Cal. Another one under his spell, I think. “Huh?” Corwin says.
“Why was it weird?”
He blushes again. “It sounds a little crazy.”
“I know crazy, trust me.”
Cal grins at me.
Corwin watches me for a moment then says, “For some reason, I believe that. I, uh… okay. Look. I don’t believe in ghosts. I don’t believe in psychics or mystics or anything weird like that.”
“There goes my whole notion of the X-Files,” I mutter.
He ignores me. “But I do believe that people can have hunches, or feelings… you know, that something is… off. I don’t think it’s any kind of sixth sense or anything like that. To be in my line of work, though, you almost have to have it. It’s saved me a few times, whether or not I could admit it at the time.” He looks at me defiantly, like he expects me to make fun of him. I keep my face passive.
He continues: “I was digging through some old case files, trying to clear off my desk. It’s this whole new initiative going through the Bureau right now: out with the old and in with the new. Cases are being labeled with a priority level so the higherups can figure out how the distribution should work. Cases that are considered dead or cold are obviously given a lower priority than the rest.”
“What does this have to do with me?” I ask. “Or my father?”
He glares at me. “I’m getting to that, okay? Look, this isn’t easy for me to tell you, because obviously you don’t know what was going on. So just listen.”
I nod, gripping Cal’s hand tightly.
“Everything is digital these days,” Corwin says, “but even five years ago we still had a shitload of paper files. And my desk was buried in them. I had a pile that I considered my “dead” pile, and I planned on taking those all at once to be put into storage. I wasn’t planning on going through them at all. They were dead. They weren’t coming back to life. So… shit.”
“What?”
He takes a large sip of coffee and starts wringing his hands. “I was working late one night. I had to stay late because we were planning on going on vacation soon. Me, the wife. The kids. It’d been so long since we’d done anything, and I was feeling a bit guilty. So I was working