Sweet Little Lies by J.T. Ellison

everywhere.
    “911, what is your emergency?”
    The tears came freely. The words left her
mouth before she realized they’d been spoken aloud.
    “I think my sister is dead. Oh, my God.”
    “Can you repeat that, ma’am?”
    Could she? Could she actually bring her
larynx to life without throwing up on her dead sister’s body? She
touched her fingers to Corinne’s neck. Remarkable how chilled the
dead flesh felt. Oh, God, the poor baby. She ran out of the room,
frenzied. Hayden, where was Hayden? Michelle turned in a tight
circle, seeing more footprints. No sign of the little girl. She was
yelling again, heard the words fly from her mouth as if they came
from another’s tongue.
    “There’s blood, oh, my God, there’s blood
everywhere. And there are footprints… Hayden?” Michelle was
screaming, frantic. She tore back into the bedroom. Something in
her mind snapped, she couldn’t seem to get it together.
    The 911 operator was yelling in her ear, but
she didn’t respond, couldn’t respond. “Ma’am? Ma’am? Who is
dead?”
    Where was that precious little girl? A
strawberry-blond head appeared from around the edge of the
king-sized sleigh bed. It took a moment to register—
    Hayden, with red hair? She was a towhead, so
blond it was almost white, no, that wasn’t right.
    “Hayden, oh, dear sweet Jesus, you’re covered
in blood. Come here. How did you get out of your crib?” She
gathered the little girl in her arms. Hayden was frozen, immobile,
unable or unwilling to move for the longest moment, then she
wrapped her arms around her aunt’s shoulders with an empty embrace
of inevitability. Pieces of the toddler’s hair, stiff and hard with
blood, poked into her neck. Michelle felt a piece of her core
shift.
    “Ma’am? Ma’am, what is your location?”
    The operator’s voice forced her to look away
from Corinne’s broken form. She raised herself, holding tight to
Hayden. Get her out of here. She can’t see this anymore.
    “Yes, I’m here. It’s 4589 Jocelyn Hollow
Court. My sister…” They were on the stairs now, moving down, and
Michelle could see the whispers of blood trailing up and down the
carpet.
    The operator was still trying to sort through
the details. “Hayden is your sister?”
    “Hayden is her daughter. Oh, God.”
    As Michelle reached the bottom of the stairs,
the child shifted on her shoulder, reaching a hand behind her,
looking up toward the second floor.
    “Mama hurt,” she said in a voice that made
her sound like a broken-down forty-year-old, not a coy,
eighteen-month-old sprite. Mama hurt. She doesn’t anymore,
darlin’.
    They were out the front door and on the porch
now, Michelle drawing in huge gulps of air, Hayden crying silently
into her shoulder, a hand still pointing back toward the house.
    “Who is dead, ma’am?” the operator asked,
more kindly now.
    “My sister, Corinne Wolff. Oh, Corinne.
She’s… she’s cold.”
    Michelle couldn’t hold it in anymore. She
heard the operator say they were sending the police. She walked
down those damnable bricks and set Hayden in the front seat of the
Volvo.
    Then she turned and lost her battle with the
nausea, vomiting out her very soul at the base of the delicate
budding dogwood.
     
     
     
THE COLD ROOM

    Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All
rights reserved.
     
    Gavin Adler jumped when a small chime sounded
on his computer. He looked at the clock in surprise; it was already
6:00 P.M. During the winter months, darkness descended and reminded
him to close up shop, but the Daylight Savings time change
necessitated an alarm clock to let him know when it was time to
leave. Otherwise, he’d get lost in his computer and never find his
way home.
    He rose from his chair, stretched, turned off
the computer and reached for his messenger bag. What a day. What a
long and glorious day.
    He took his garbage with him; his lunch
leavings. There was no reason to have leftover banana peels in his
trash can overnight. He shut off the