"Hello, Reject," Rosalind greets him as he sits down.
Rob wishes he could smoke in here. "Why did you want to see me?"
"You look tired," she says, scanning his pale face. "Are the press still hounding you? I heard you were demoted."
"I'm fine."
"And how's Detective Maddox?" she asks. "I was hoping you two could work things out."
"So you just want to play games." He stands up.
"Actually, I wanted to talk about Peter and Jamie."
"What about them?" He remains standing.
"Don't you want to know what happened to them?"
"Yes, but since you weren't yet born when they disappeared, I don't see how you can help me."
"My parents were."
He sits down, hating himself for being suckered into this meeting. "Your father already told me everything he knew."
"It's my mother you want to talk to." She looks off into the distance. "I used to hear them arguing about it. She thought he and his friends had something to do with the disappearances."
"Well, she was wrong."
"How can you be sure?"
"Because I remember them finding me, and Peter and Jamie were already gone."
"Poor little Adam." His skin crawls at the sound of his name in her voice.
"You must be bored in here," he says. "I don't suppose your family have been visiting." He's pleased to see a flicker of emotion in her cold eyes.
"Tell me," she says. "When you gave me that phone... when you told me about losing your best friend..." He shifts, ruing his stupidity. "You felt it, didn't you? The connection between us."
He shrugs. "Part of my job is getting people to open up to me."
"But you gave away a little more than you intended." She smiles, the hardness returning to her eyes.
"You fooled me," he acknowledges. "I never thought my career would be toppled by a teenage girl."
"That connection between us was real," she insists. "We're the same, Adam."
He's wasting his time here. "We won't see each other again," he tells her, getting up.
"Give my love to Killer Cassie," is her parting shot.
Her words are still ringing in his ears as he returns to his car and drives back to his desk job.