The Hidden Message

The last thing Kaylie saw before passing out from the beating her abusive husband was giving her were her three young children standing in the doorway to her bedroom coming to her rescue. After beginning a new life on a ranch in Wyoming, she finally felt safe. That feeling was shattered when she received a package in the mail of small wooden tiles with letters of the alphabet crudely burned into them. On top of the tiles lay a note instructing her to solve the puzzle and find the hidden message. Was the package nothing more than an effort to get under her skin? Or was it a legitimate threat to her well-being? Time would tell.

The last thing Kaylie saw before passing out from the beating from her husband, Tim, were her children rushing to the door of their bedroom. Mark was wielding a baseball bat, Maddie - his twin - a kitchen knife, and little Mason a flyswatter. How had the man she married changed into a demonic stranger without her realizing it? The downhill slide began in the small town of Prattville, Alabama where Kaylie began working as an agent with Tim's best friend, Rich Clark, who lived in Nashville on the purchase of a seven-million-dollar ranch in Wyoming. A sale, she would have caved and given to Tim under pressure if her best friend and co-worker, Molly, hadn't pushed her to stand up for herself. Who would have ever guessed much to Tim's chagrin, she would successfully negotiate a sale? Eventually with time Kaylie began a new life in Wyoming with her children and as the wife of the seller, Tate Bradely. There, she felt she was safe from the crippled ex-husband she left almost two thousand miles behind. And she was - until she received an ominous message through the mail that was delivered in the form of a crudely hand-made puzzle made of wooden tiles. Were they going to be able to unscramble the letters to decipher the message in time? Or would the edict elude them until it was too late?

Cheri Dine (Thomas) Wendland writes under the pen name of Cheri Dean. "A Dance Farewell" was her debut novel. It was so well received, it prompted her to move forward with this publication as well as others. Cheri has been a closet writer for most of her adult life. Cheri lives with her husband, Charles, in Northern Virginia, which is a long way from the southern roots she loves. She is looking forward to a tentative move to Wilmington, North Carolina, late this summer. Like her mother, she thinks she has wings on her feet. The more we learn about her, the more we agree.