[The look from Marianne doesn't go unnoticed, but admittedly Carmen's more dryly amused than anything else by it. She'll have to watch her step around that one, evidently — at least until she's had more of a chance to demonstrate that she's a friend.]

Carmen Sandiego. We've spoken before, but never in person.

[It's far too hot for leather gloves, but that hasn't stopped her from wearing them. She'd feel incomplete without something covering her hands, after all. And so it's a black-gloved hand that France receives in answer to his own.]

And if memory serves, I think you're already acquainted with Aidan — he belongs to a mutual friend of ours, I believe. Special Agent Cooper.

[Belongs. It's no accident that the word isn't past tense. Aidan may be in her care now, but he's not hers. Not deep down.]