He does not expect to see her.
He is there because of the patrol call — a man found in a South Philly alley at eleven PM, apparent overdose, and the responding officer has flagged it for the hospital's community liaison program because the man had a medical alert bracelet indicating a complex cardiac condition. Gideon is on call. He goes.
The man is already gone by the time he arrives. There is nothing for him to do medically. He is standing at the edge of the taped area talking to the responding officer when he becomes aware, at the periphery of his attention, of a woman on the other side of the tape with a notepad.
He looks at her.
She looks at him.
There is a beat that is not quite surprise and not quite recognition — something in between, the thing that happens when you encounter someone from a specific context in the wrong setting.
She comes around the tape. "Dr. Vale."
"Ms. Roseline."
"I didn't expect to see you here."
"I could say the same." He looks at her notepad. "This doesn't seem like a pharmaceutical story."
"It does, actually. This is the third overdose in this specific two-block area in six weeks. The product is the same batch — fentanyl-laced street supply that traces back to a distribution point I've been mapping." She says this matter-of-factly. Not for effect. She is simply telling him what she knows, which he suspects is her natural mode. "What brings a trauma surgeon to a scene where the patient is already—"
"Community liaison," he says. "Medical bracelet."
"Right." She writes something. Not about him — she does not look up when she writes. "What do you know about this area? Medically. What are you seeing at the hospital end?"
"That's a question you can request in writing through the hospital's communications office."
"I know." She looks up. Her dark eyes are doing the thing they did before — taking everything in, storing it, making assessments she will not share. "You could also just answer it, since you're here."
"I could." He looks at her for a moment. "You ask questions like someone who already has the answer."
She does not react immediately. She writes something, caps her pen, and looks at him with an expression that is almost a smile. "Usually I do." A pause. "Why do you notice that?"
He does not have a good answer to that question that is also a safe answer. He chooses silence.
"Buy you a coffee?" she asks. "There's a place open half a block up."
He looks at his watch. He looks at the scene, which needs nothing from him. He looks at her.
"One cup," he says.