Cryptic Truths

Hidden Keys #3

by Jacie Middlemann

Disappearing wasn’t going to be enough…they needed a plan…and some answers. Luckily, Ava Sullivan isn’t on her own. A childhood friend that she hasn’t seen in years is proving once again that he can be trusted even as they just barely avoid one near miss after another. But this isn’t the first time that Harper Riley has had to dodge bullets or protect himself from oncoming fire.

This time though, the gun in his hand was to protect Ava.

Hidden Keys is a series of short stories, each revealing key pieces of information that are not always obvious to Ava Sullivan and Harper Riley as they do everything they can to identify her pursuers, find the answers about why they are after Ava, and somehow stay alive after surviving the first attempt on her life only days after her father’s death.

The Hidden Keys Short Story series is filled with long hidden secrets, strong characters, and a growing quest for justice. If you enjoy Short Reads…quick to read short stories, slightly entangled and complicated relationships, and a puzzling mystery that needs to be unraveled…the Hidden Keys may be the series for you.

This is part three of the Hidden Keys short story series that is best read in sequence.

Hidden Keys Legacy
Surviving the Night
First Clues
Cryptic Truths

22 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 2, 2021

About the author

I fell in love with books when I was in the 4th grade and my free period was spent volunteering in the school library. I read every Nancy Drew book there was to check out, discovered collections of myths and fairy tales from around the world, Louisa May Alcott and C.S. Lewis, and decided I wanted my own library. By the end of that summer with the supplies our school librarian graciously provided me my books had due date slips, card pockets, book cards, and black electrical tape on the spine with the first three letters of the author's last name. I still have most of those books.
In the hope she could get me involved in something else my mother gave me a camera. Right around the same time my father told me I could use his typewriter when he wasn't using it. The typewriter won. We shared his typewriter but I also filled notebooks with stories scribbled before school, after school, and often when I was supposed to be asleep. Thanks to my mother, who saved just about every single one of those notebooks, I still have them as well.
Several years ago my father gave me his typewriter…the same one we shared all those summers ago. Every time I look at it I remember the young 4th grade girl who was quietly encouraged to do what she loved…and years later reminded with a box filled with notebooks crammed full of handwritten stories and dreams.
And it’s still not unheard of that I stay up way later than I should with a good book that’s just impossible to put down.

Reviews

[Richard Goodrum · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another excellent episode. Ava and Harper are still in need of more answers than they have as to why somebody wants her dead. Or even who that somebody is. Per the previous episode, they turn their attention to her uncle. More bullets fly. More secret passages are traversed. The tension continues to remain high. I look forward to the next installment.

Easy-to-read. Entertaining. Great world building. Haunting. Tragic. Twisted. Wonderful characters.

[Ruth Forman Garrett · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too many books

Because it is ridiculousto put this story in so many books. I dont like that. I like the story but it could have been put in one book!if