DoubleDown V by John R. Little and Mark Allan Gunnells

tears running down both cheeks.  She took Bonnie’s hand and held it, not letting go until the sun came up.
     
    *   *   *
     
    The next two weeks were the hardest of Karen’s life.  She spent most of her time at the hospital, talking to Bonnie, wanting her to hear her voice and know she was there.  Sometimes Karen didn’t know what to say, and she started reading to Bonnie, the way she’d done for so many patients.
    Every day it seemed less and less likely that Bonnie would recover.  The doctors weren’t sure how much to tell her, because she had no legal standing.  They weren’t married, they weren’t related, and there was little legal recourse from them living together, regardless of how committed Karen said their relationship was.  Bonnie had never filled in any paperwork that would identify Karen as her next of kin.
    Eventually Karen found out the truth: Bonnie was brain-dead.  There was no chance of recovery.  Her body was breathing because of the machinery forcing air into her lungs, but otherwise she was just a lifeless husk.  The woman Karen loved more than life itself was gone and would never return.
    After those two weeks, Karen finally turned her attention to Bobby Jersey.
    “You fucking bastard,” she said to her empty living room.  “I’m going to kill you for taking her from me.”
    Karen had never understood why Bobby did the things he did and she hadn’t much cared.  Now she realized that she should have done something to stop him earlier, but the things he did had never directly affected her and she couldn’t bring herself to interfere.   Now she’d give anything to be able to go back in time and stop him before he’d had the opportunity to take Bonnie from her.
    She knew his address.
    It was a Saturday when time stopped for her. She knew exactly where to go.  Electronics didn’t work when time was stopped, but she could still ride a bicycle.  She hopped on her bike and cranked it as hard as she could.  Bobby currently lived about three miles from her, and although she hadn’t been to the house, she’d studied the maps, knowing one day she might need to go.
    When she arrived, she dropped the bicycle and strode into the house.
    Sitting in the living room was a middle-aged woman, watching some mindless television.  A balding, skinny man was in the kitchen making a tuna sandwich.  She ignored them and searched the rest of the house.  There was only the master bedroom and one other.  It had been converted to a reading room, with a couple of armchairs and a set of wall-to-wall bookcases.
    “Shit,” she said.  He doesn’t live here.
    The address Bobby had allowed her to find was fake.
    She felt empty, unwilling to believe that she couldn’t find him, that she’d never have the satisfaction of revenge for what he’d done.
    She rode her bike slowly home, winding around town, looking uselessly for any hint of Bobby.  She headed down to the beach in case he was there, but no dice.
    And then the calling came to her and she had to ride back home.
    Two days later, Karen had checked everything she could think of.  There was no entry for anybody with a last name of Jersey in Laguna Beach in any online directory, no new address or hint of anything from his Facebook account (in fact she found a recent entry with the fake address she’d previously seen), and it slowly dawned on her that he’d lied to her from the first day they met.  Bobby Jersey likely wasn’t even his real name.
    She continued to go see Bonnie every minute she could.  The love she felt never diminished, and she sometimes wished she could crawl into the hospital bed with her, holding her like she would have in their own bed.
    Karen had finished reading several novels to Bonnie and was close to the end of another when she went to visit one night.
    Bonnie’s room was empty. 
    Karen panicked and ran to the nurse’s station.  As usual it was hard to get information, but the distress written on her face