The Chronicler and Mr Smith

by Angie Martin

  The Chronicler

  and Mr. Smith

  The Madison Shaw Chronicles

  Book One

  Angie Martin

  This edition published by Angie Martin via Amazon KDP

  Text © Angie Martin 2018

  ASIN #B07KFSQNF4

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. In accordance with U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author's intellectual property. If you would like to use material from this book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher. Thank you for your support of the author's rights.

  Edited by: CJ Pinard

  Cover Design by: Amanda Walker

  Model: Daniel Rengering

  Photography by: Zachary Jaydon

  Original Score: Vengeance Divided (Mr. Smith’s Theme)

  Written by: Christian Goscha

  Performed by: Christian Goscha and David Bryant

  To learn more about author Angie Martin,

  please visit her website at www.angiemartinbooks.com.

  This work of fiction contains adult situations that may not be suitable for children under eighteen years of age. Recommended for mature audiences only.

  Novels by Angie Martin

  Rachel Thomas Novels

  False Security (Book 1)

  False Hope (Book 2)

  Emily Monroe Novels

  Conduit

  The Darkness (coming soon)

  Other Novels

  The Boys Club

  Chrysalis

  Poetry / Short Story collections

  Shadows

  the three o’clock in the morning sessions

  Anthologies

  Eye of Fear

  The Cat, the Crow, and the Cauldron

  Discovery

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Author’s Note

  About Angie Martin

  One Last Thing…

  Dedication

  For everyone who has had a dream and made it reality.

  For everyone who has stood on the edge and embraced the unknown.

  For everyone who has faced down their fears and survived even the darkest of nights.

  This book is for you.

  Acknowledgements

  There are so many people who have made this book possible. Any omissions are entirely accidental.

  First and foremost, I have to thank my son, Christian Goscha. I gave you an impossible task: listen to a couple songs that I like and write a song to go with a book you’d never read and knew nothing about. You brought Mr. Smith alive through music and created a theme song for him that cannot be denied as brilliant. Your talent knows absolutely no bounds. You can go anywhere and accomplish anything you dream.

  Thank you also to Christian’s best friend (my “other son”), David Bryant, for lending your incredible drumming talent to the song.

  Johnny and Kailar, you always support me no matter what and without question. I love you both so, so, so much. You, too, Lexi Lulu Buttons, for being my faithful companion through life.

  Mom, you’re always an inspiration to keep going forward in this crazy dream of being a writer. I love and appreciate you more than you know.

  Bree Haack, you are covered in awesome sauce – and thank you also for supporting Christian’s dreams. You’re a wonderful and vital part of our lives!

  Marisa Oldham, life without you would be unbearable. You’re not allowed to leave me, never ever. Thank you for helping me come up with some names of characters for this book. Mads loves her nickname; it’s absolutely perfect. Now, go publish your next book!

  Heather Anne, I’ve known you only a short while, but you are the “cockiest” author friend I have! I’m pretty darn positive that means you’ll be around for a long, long while. Thank you for the intense support and love you’ve given me.

  Leila Kirkconnell, you’ve always been such a supportive writing buddy and friend. I am so grateful for your guidance, your honesty, and your friendship. I don’t ever want to have to navigate this crazy writing world without you!

  Amanda Walker, your covers are always amazing, but you outdid yourself on this one. You took my vision, ran with it, and made it into something beautiful. I cannot thank you enough.

  Kayla Ries, thanks for being a great friend and helping guide me through the author world with plenty of new ideas and lots of laughter.

  Sarah Rutledge, thank you for always being there for me. You are such an awesome friend, and you were amazing at reading as I wrote this. Now that I know how good you are at this, you’re in for it!

  Prologue

  I t was strange how my mind processed the odors. I never really thought about it before that night. Never had a reason to. I vaguely remembered something about the olfactory neuron things in the nose inhaling a combination of scents and sending messages up to the brain for translation. This perfect little system that sometimes misinterprets what we think a smell is. And, in that brief moment on that night, I wondered if others in the room smelled the same thing as me.

  Curdled milk mixed with rotten raspberries and sour pancake batter. Even now, I can summon the smell to mind, which causes me to wretch a bit before I force myself not to vomit at the aftertaste of those events.

  But, that was what I smelled. I noticed it when I entered the building – knew firsthand it could be offensive – but nothing could have prepared me for it, especially in the seconds my mind took to break down the odors into layers. Why would my brain choose that moment? The moment I stared Death in the face, knew he was coming for me – only for me – hard, fast, crashing, a thousand teeth shattering against my skin… Or, did my skin shatter in the wake of the teeth? All I knew was that Death had one pristine gold tooth, a luscious red mullet, and a fresh spray tan in mid-January.

  And, his muddy green eyes focused solely on me.

  Chapter One

  Five days earlier…

  T he solemn winds of winter blew along the line of people, touching the backs of their heads and caressing their faces. It drove their need to shiver in their extra layers, probably chilling their toes to the bone. I sat behind a table, staring up at them, wondering why they would be there. Why give up the luxury of he
ated homes and blankets to stand in line for hours? I wouldn’t do that even if someone was handing out free money, yet, they were in line to part with some of theirs.

  “I keep telling the staff to remind them to keep the doors shut.” My self-appointed publicist and best friend, Liz Pohl, leaned over my shoulder, her stick-straight blonde hair grazing my cheek. Peppermint hot chocolate-coated breath heated my ear and cheek. “What is wrong with people? Are they trying to freeze you out?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said, a permanent smile plastered on my face. “We survived the outdoor book fair in Kansas City in August, right? We can survive anything.”

  “You won’t ever let me forget that, will you?”

  “Not until my sunburn finally goes away. Now, I can add frostbite to my list of grievances.” I shifted my demeanor from sarcastic to cordial as footsteps approached my table. “Hi!” I said to the woman in front of me.

  She looked just like the many before her – a little frazzled, unsure if I was truly a human being, having no idea what to say, but all-in-all excited that a bestselling author sat in front of her. Her trembling hand held my latest novel – released the day before – for an autograph.

  I accepted the book and asked, “Who should I make it out to?”

  “Eileen,” she said. “E-I-L-E-E-N.”

  “Thanks for spelling it,” I said, offering an extra-large smile. I opened to the front of the book and tried to decide what to write. I hated that I couldn’t personalize each autograph as I loved connecting with readers, but when so many people were in line waiting, it just wasn’t possible.

  “May I ask you a question, Miss Shaw?” Eileen asked.

  “Call me Madison, please. And, of course.”

  “In your book, Withered Flowers, do you ever regret not writing a happily ever after ending?”

  I held my smile in place, though I would have rather gone to the dentist and had all my teeth extracted without the benefit of lidocaine than answer the question. Again. For the millionth time.

  “You know, Eileen,” I said, ignoring the barrage of curse words running through my mind, “sometimes it crosses my thoughts that I could have gone a different route with that ending.” My fingers scratched at the base of my skull, which had been itching for the past couple days. I didn’t know what to attribute it to, but at that moment, I believed it to be stress-induced.

  “Have you ever thought about rewriting it and releasing it with an HEA?” she asked, her shyness suddenly vanishing as her confidence spiked, as if we were collaborating on the next great American novel. “I was thinking that the book derailed off the HEA path when Heath didn’t return Catherine’s call immediately in Chapter Six. Maybe if you had…”

  HEA. Happily Ever After. The three words in the writing industry I hated the most. In my first novel, Withered Flowers, I wrote what I felt was a deeply poetic romance novel without an HEA. Real life didn’t always end with the hero and heroine holding hands and strutting down the sidewalk toward a rainbow, serenaded by the playful barks of puppy dogs – at least that was my reasoning. At the time I wrote Withered Flowers, I was an independent author – indies, the industry called us – and wanted to write something I loved. Something I could relate to. Something of which I’d be proud.

  With my second indie novel, Sunrise Settings, I wrote an HEA, against my better judgment. Then, the “right person” read the novel, and before I knew it, I was selling a few thousand copies a day. Agents and publishers started contacting me. It was a dream come true… or so I thought.

  After my stunning success, my new fanbase read Withered Flowers. The reviews were less than favorable. Apparently, I had broken a cardinal rule, committed high treason against the romance genre, not necessarily because I wrote a sad ending, but because I didn’t warn readers about it in the book blurb. I didn’t even know that was a thing – giving away the ending of a book, divulging whether it would be happy or not before someone reads it. I called that ruining a great read. I never was one to flip to the end of a book after the first chapter. I savored every word, bided my time, and bit off each of my fingernails until I finally read “The End.” I thought everyone felt the same way.

  I was wrong.

  Since then, I had sustained relentless interrogations about the ending of Withered Flowers. There was even a website dedicated to my butchering of the ending. Thousands of fan fiction works had flooded the Internet in an attempt to rewrite history. All the while, I wanted to scream at everyone that I was the writer. I could write endings the way the characters dictate, and besides that, the characters weren’t even real!

  Eileen didn’t seem to care about any of that as she continued her dissection of my finest work. “Then, Heath could have met Catherine at the diner in Chapter Twenty-four, and—”

  “You know, I was actually thinking that I could revisit my other novels and take them in the opposite direction.”

  “What, uh… what do you mean?”

  “Oh, just a little murder here and there. Some blood, guts, criminal masterminds, maybe a chainsaw, and yeah… murder.”

  The look on her face was as if I had threatened the lives of real human beings, and I instantly regretted my sarcasm. Even though I really meant it. If I could kill all my HEA characters, I would.

  Unfortunately, poor Eileen didn’t seem to like that at all.

  I laughed and shrugged. “I’m just kidding.”

  Her hand flew to her chest, and she let out a nervous chuckle. “Oh, I see. Yes, funny.”

  “These are all wonderful suggestions you’ve given me,” I said to her as gently as possible. “I will definitely take them under advisement should I revisit Withered Flowers someday.”

  She looked like I’d just told her I was naming my firstborn after her. “I’m so glad to help. I’ve always thought of writing myself, and—”

  “I think you should pursue that.” I put on a disappointed expression. “I’m so sorry, but I have to get to the next person.”

  She peeked over her shoulder as if she had forgotten where we were – in the middle of a large bookstore in New York City in mid-January with a line out the door. “I didn’t mean to hold up the others. It’s just always been a dream to meet you and talk to you about your novels and…” Her eyes lit up brighter than Times Square. “Maybe I can email you personally? Write down my suggestions and—”

  “Sure! I’d love to hear from you! The email address is on my website.”

  “Oh, okay. I’ll do… that… tonight.” Her forehead wrinkled with the disappointment in her tone, causing me a twinge of regret. But, I couldn’t give out my personal email address to every reader.

  “Thanks so much for coming in!” I said as she retreated from my table. My cheeks ached from so much fake smiling.

  It wasn’t that I didn’t appreciate readers like Eileen, and I would have hated to ever sound ungrateful, but there was something easier about not being a famous romance novelist. I could work my craft the way I wanted to. I could dabble in any genre I wanted. I wouldn’t have felt the need to please everyone. I wouldn’t have had to apologize for Withered Flowers. And, I would have been a far better writer for it. I longed for those days again, even if my royalty checks were so much nicer after my publishing deal.

  But, I never stopped loving my readers. Not once.

  “Maybe you need a break,” Liz said from over my shoulder.

  “I’d like to get through a few more first.”

  “Threatening to kill your characters could get you blasted into the outer stratospheres of Twitter… Whoa, hold on a sec.” Before I could process her comments, she stood up and her eyes surveyed the line of readers. “Would you looky there. Who is that?”

  My gaze followed hers to the end of the line, where the door had just closed, and I saw the man she referred to. It was unusual for any man to attend one of my book signings, but occasionally one would. But, a man who looked like that… that never happened.

  “Am I seeing things?” she asked.
“Did he just jump out of one of your books and come to life?”

  I chuckled under my breath and tried not to stare at the man. Liz was always looking for Mr. Right Now, and it seemed she had found him again. Of course, I couldn’t really blame her. His sea-blue eyes seemed to shine from across the room, and the dark hair and few days’ growth on his jaw didn’t hurt any.

  I internally rolled my eyes at myself. Next thing I knew, I’d be thinking about chiseled features and sliding my hand across rock-hard abs. Those things only occurred in my novels. Thankfully.

  The crazy need to scratch the base of my skull just above the hairline overcame me again, and my hand flew to the back of my neck to cure the itch. For the past two days, I’d noticed myself scratching more and more back there. It had started out small, but quickly became relentless. I tried putting cortisone cream on it, tried dandruff shampoo, tried popping more than a few Benadryl, but nothing worked. Worse yet, it was hidden beneath my mass of unruly, cinnamon-colored hair. I’d have to shave off a good portion of the thick strands to try to see the rash in a mirror.

  The next several readers went through the line without saying anything noteworthy. On average, one out of every ten readers brought up Withered Flowers, so I was grateful that sixteen readers passed without uttering the book’s name.

  Just as I was ready to call for a break, the man who had caught Liz’s eye stepped up to the table. He shifted the book from under his arm and placed it in front of me. Withered Flowers. I waited for him to tell me his wife or girlfriend ranted and raved on a daily basis over my inability to give the book a happy ending.

  He didn’t say a word as he slid the book across the table.

  “Hi there,” I said, my usually chatty demeanor disappearing. “Who should I make it out to?”