Page 38 of Tapped

Died … four days ago.

Well, at least she lived a full life. That makes me feel slightly better about being here.

Good for you, Georgia.

I hand her back the bulletin without reading further.

“Family?” I ask.

She shakes her head and turns back to the front of the church. “Patient.”

I widen my eyes and let my next question hang in the stale air between us. “You didn’t accidentally … you know…”

She frowns and practically yells at me so quietly no one else can hear. “No, I did not kill my patient. Mrs. Bostic had lung cancer. She battled it for a long time. She was a fighter. A survivor … until it got the best of her. She was courageous and funny and bossed her kids around every time she was in my office or I visited her in the hospital.”

I forget where I’m at and shift in my seat to get a better look at her. “Were you close to her?”

Evie shrugs a slim, bare shoulder and turns her attention forward. “No closer than I am to any of my patients.”

I rest an elbow on the back of the pew and settle in. “But close enough that you felt it was important to be here.”

“I specialize in geriatrics. By nature, my patients have a high mortality rate under my care.”

“I never thought about it that way.” The doctor is more and more intriguing as the moments pass. “You probably have a lot of patients.”

“The last I checked, just over eight hundred. Ideally, I shoot for seven hundred, but there’s a shortage of geriatricians and a plethora of elderly in southern Florida. I can’t turn away patients when they’re referred.” She tips her head and sighs. “I mean, I could, but I just can’t.”

I read the room and watch mourners of Georgia shuffle in. Well done, Georgia. It looks like you might have a full house.

I stretch my arm out behind Evie and lean in closer since we aren’t as removed as we once were. “Do you go to a lot of funerals?”

Her dark eyes hit me somewhere deep. “Look at all of these people, Micah. My patient meant something to every one of them, or they wouldn’t take the time out of their lives to be here. I don’t ever want to forget that. I go to every funeral I can. My father used to harp at me that it’s too much, and I need to distance my heart from my work. But I feel the opposite. Doing this,” she motions to the vast church in front of us, “makes me feel good.”

I stare at the woman in front of me and wonder what the hell is wrong with her husband that he would go to such lengths to rip her from his life forever. Evie is straight up good.

A good mother.

A good doctor

A good person.

He’s taken advantage of that, probably because she comes from money and he’s a plain shit person. Maybe at one point, he knew what he had before he fucked up his life.

I’ve never wanted to kill anyone more than Jeff Michaels. That might be one funeral I’d be happy to attend.

I leave my arm where it’s stretched across the pew behind her and shift to face forward again. Touching her at all is wrong.

But I can’t help but want to.

She doesn’t move when the outside of my thigh rests against her bare one where her legs are crossed. That damn dress has ridden halfway up her quad.

The background music is done, and the organ starts a new piece. It’s louder and makes the church feel less big but more ominous. The last time I was in a church, I swore that was it.

Because it doesn’t matter how good you try to be—or fuck, just how good you actually are—life sucks.

Hannah is proof of that.

And so is Evie.

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