Chapter Seventy-Four

Colette Smith (P.O.V.)

I had just finished cleaning up the basement. I ran upstairs quickly to my room, to grab a towel so that I could go shower as quickly as I could. It was pretty late by now when my mother got home. She had questioned why I was even down there, and I used the excuse that I was just looking for a pair of shorts that I assumed could have been down here since we usually accumulate all of our dirty laundry in the basement instead of in the laundry room because it was not that big. My mother immediately asked for Martha, to which I explained to her that she said she wanted to go out for the evening with a friend. I lied and told my mother that Martha was cheating on her husband with some strange man who had shown up at the house to take her out for the evening. In the instance that I get asked about the mystery man’s appearance, I mentioned that I did not get a good look at him, only that I realized that his voice was unusually deep. I t