She shouldn't have sympathy for this. There's overwhelming odds it's a ploy of some kind, another manipulation tossed at her to winnow John out of wherever he happens to be (and she's already half-wishing he'd wander out of wherever he is to take this situation off her hands), but even with the obvious falsehood of those sad eyes - because of the obvious falsehood of those sad eyes - a spark of compassion gets touched off all the same.

"I'm sorry that I don't know you." The looming doesn't take her aback. She holds her ground as the taller woman takes over the doorway, however she has to crane her neck, but her expression softens. "You're not the first person I've disappointed. But I don't, and I don't know how you know John, or what you think he's done."

She's not good at this. There were always other people better suited to smoothing things over and managing the disgruntled, but none of them are here now. (None of them are anywhere.) She tries to think of what they might say.

"Why don't we talk about this outside?" She suggests, dropping the crisp iciness of her tone. "Maybe we can figure this out. How does that sound?"