HARDCORE: Storm MC(144)

But as clues to Gigi's mom's disappearance crop up in new and unexpected places, the two of us clash and mesh with wild intensity.

I've never felt like this about a woman before.

I want her.

I need her.

I crave her.



And I'm going to take her, again and again... Until I overdose.





Chapter One



Jamie





“Miss Hollis?” One of my students raised her hand, then tried to wave me over to her desk. “I don’t understand this problem.”



I went to her, bending over to check out her work. Erica was always a serious student, probably more serious than the average second grader, but math still wasn’t her strong suit. I talked her through until she seemed to get it, then patted her on the back and left her alone.



It had been a long day. I stretched slightly, rolling my head on my shoulders to get the kinks out of my neck. It had been a long week, actually. The final bell couldn’t ring soon enough. Funny how as a kid it never occurred to me that my teachers might be just as eager for school to be over as I was.



I cast a glance at the only empty desk in the classroom, frowning. Gigi missed the entire week of school—unheard of for her. She might have had a recovering drug addict for a mother, but she brought herself to school every day.



I told myself, as I always did, not to be so hard on her. I didn’t know what it was like to struggle the way Rae did. I only knew the effect it had on her little girl. I resented that.



Gigi wasn’t my only student, though, and the rest of them needed my help. I turned my attention to a couple who were getting in an argument and told myself to think about Gigi after the bell rang. I needed some answers.



When the bell finally rang and I led two dozen excited seven-year-olds outside and I took a deep breath. It was chilly outside. I wondered if Gigi was warm wherever she was.



Linda, the other second-grade teacher, approached me. “No Gigi today either.”



I frowned, watching the kids run off to their parents, babysitters, school buses. “No. That’s a full week.”



“Has she ever been out so long before?”



“No.” I wrapped my sweater tighter around my waist.



“There was that nasty stomach bug going around,” Linda reasoned. “It might have been that.”



“For an entire week? Without a phone call, no less? I don’t think so.” I put a hand on Linda’s arm. “I appreciate you trying to make me feel better.” She knew how special Gigi was to me. Every teacher had that one student, the kid who stood out for one reason or another. It wasn’t that Gigi was the most vocal, the showiest with her smarts. But she was easily the smartest in the class. She was also the sweetest, always concerned for the other kids. When she picked up a math problem somebody else didn’t understand, she would help them with it. She wouldn’t make the other kids feel bad for lagging behind her lightning-fast brain.



For all that, she had a quiet sadness. She reminded me sometimes of a broken puppy, one who had been kicked one too many times. Not that I ever saw bruises on her. It was more a haunted quality about her eyes that touched my heart. She had a quiet, gentle way about her, and a wisdom far beyond her years. No kid should have been as wise to the world as she was, poor thing.



“So, what are you going to do about it?” Linda walked with me back into the school.



“What makes you think I’m going to do anything at all?”



She laughed. “I’ve met you, that’s what makes me think it. Come on. This is me you’re talking to. I know how much you love that little girl. And I know you would go out of your way for any one of your students. So what’s the plan?” She sat on the edge of my desk while I cleaned up my classroom.



“I can’t say that I have an actual plan,” I admitted. “I was hoping to find out something about her whereabouts. I want to call the hospitals, the police if I have to. I’m hoping somebody will have an answer for me, because I’m just about going out of my mind with worry for her.”



“Do you think it’s really that bad?” Linda asked.



“You know as well as I do that her mother’s a drug addict. It’s not a secret.” I flipped my long blonde ponytail from one shoulder to the other as I bent to gather toys. “So if I jump to the wrong conclusions, I don’t think it’s unwarranted.”



“I never said it wasn’t. I’m wondering if you’re not getting a little too involved is all.”



I stood, scowling. “Now you sound like Vickie.” Our principal warned me all the time about my closeness with Gigi, but I couldn’t help it. I went to her office to recommend we intervene on several occasions—whenever it seemed as though Gigi was looking a little thin, or was underdressed for the weather, for instance. One day she came in wearing nothing but a t-shirt, shorts, and sneakers in an inch of snow. Poor thing couldn’t reach the winter clothes packed away at the top of her closet. When I asked her why she didn’t even wear a coat, she told me she couldn’t get her mommy to wake up. I drew my own conclusions. The poor thing had dressed herself, then walked six blocks in a snowstorm.