THE STONE BEYOND
Flowerhill Medical Romance Series Book 2
By Anna Strachan
Copyright © 2019 Anna Strachan. All Rights Reserved.
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles and reviews. Any unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the author’s permission.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental. The author does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.
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CHAPTER ONE
Jennifer Carlisle pushed through the crowd in front of Rocky Mountain General Hospital, the protesting Colorado citizens holding their signs high, waving them and their fists, shouting so much and so loud that she could hardly make out a single word.
She felt small in front of them, increasingly small as if she were shrinking, cowering.
Wait, Jennifer told herself, hasn’t this happened before? She was struck with a remarkable sense of déjà vu. But it only felt familiar and not quite the same. Things were different, and they were happening all around her.
Pretty reporter Sonny Dae stood nearby, blonde and professional with a mic in her hand and fear in her face. She asked Jennifer something, but her voice was muffled, too soft amid all that clamor. Leaning forward, Jennifer strained to hear the woman, but the harder she tried the more indistinguishable that voice became.
Then somebody in the crowd caught Jennifer’s attention. Her own dean of the hospital, Nelson White, stood in the crowd with the protestors, shouting and grimacing and shaking his fist in the crowd rising up against the hospital he was charged with running.
It doesn’t make any sense, Jennifer told herself. But that wasn’t the only thing that didn’t make sense. There were other familiar faces in the crowd, newly familiar, hippie Davy Jones wearing beads and a tie-dyed t-shirt, shouting and shaking his head, flipping her the middle finger instead of a peace sign.
Jennifer turned to her father, standing with her and wearing a face that showed as much fear as she was feeling. Handsome doctor Parker Stone also stood nearby, black hair and blue eyes reassuring. But he scuttled away, disappointing her with his cowardice.
Did he really just leave like that? And thinking about how and why, it only occurred to her then that he was in Los Angeles, and so was her father.
And so am I, Jennifer told herself. This doesn’t make any sense!
But there was little enough time to think about it. A rock flew past Jennifer’s head, so close she could almost hear it whir by. Jennifer ducked back and turned to see poor Sonny Dae under a barrage of stones, hitting her in the face, the head, dropping her slowly to the ground.
Jennifer turned to see the crowd closing in on her, massive in number and driven by blood thirst; a murderous mob with a single mind.
But instead of stones, they closed in with their grasping fingers and hateful hands, grabbing her arms, surrounding her. Muscular Tony Valletti was suddenly foremost in the crowd in front of Jennifer, his angry face looming above her. He yelled something Jennifer couldn’t quite understand. But she knew why Tony was mad at her, why they were all mad; each had their reasons. But they were beyond reason, and Jennifer was too frightened to speak. She tried to kick at them but they grabbed her legs, hands on her calves and thighs, her whole body immobile as they surrounded her. She looked around for her father, for Parker, but all she could see were angry faces surrounding her, a circle of condemnation with her at its center.
They’d already closed in, now it was time for the kill.
* * *
Jennifer gasped, springing up out of bed. She looked around her new bedroom Los Feliz Village, just south of Griffith Park. Her breath was panted, red hair sticking to her sweat-slick face, heart beating fast, mouth dry.
A dream, she thought, just a dream! Jesus!
Jennifer dropped her head back onto her warm, damp pillow, red hair collecting on either side. But her conscious, reasoning mind focused in the calm of that moment on what the dream meant; reflections of the past encroaching on the future.
Jennifer took a hot shower, water pouring over her gymnast’s figure, still tight and compact, rinsing away the panic sweat and worry of her fitful night’s sleep and giving her a chance to work through its import.
Are we going to have a bunch of protests at Flowerhill, the way we had at Rocky Mountain General? I don’t want to go through that again!
But there was more to her dream than the protest.
Doctor Parker Stone, Jennifer thought, he wouldn’t have just run away like that, not in real life. But … odd that I would think of him that way. Am I afraid he’s going to bolt on me? We’re not together, and we’re not going to be together.
I better get that through my thick head.
Jennifer put on a nice Lulus heir lines black striped dress with a matching pair of Taylor black suede ankle strap heels. She fixed her curly red hair over her head in a professional bun, letting a few ringlets hang down over the side of
