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  DEADLY DOSAGE

  A SUNNY KRAMER NOVEL

  CHERYL RICHARDS

  This work is fiction. Creative liberties were taken incorporating fact with fiction. Any similarity to actual persons, places, or events is strictly a coincidence. Any trademarked products or companies mentioned throughout this work are meant to add realism to the story and should not be considered an endorsement of such.

  ©2012 Cheryl M. Schultz. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, scanned, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of author.

  Cover Design by John Schultz

  This is dedicated to my best friend and sister, Jill, who is always there for me. Thanks for your never ending support and encouragement.

  Prologue

  My name is Summer Alexandria Kramer. I grew up in a middle-class subdivision in southeastern Milwaukee County, much like any other in the Midwest. Summers were spent playing bloody murder or kick-the-can after dark with my friends in our large backyard, which proudly displayed more weeds than grass. To those in the neighborhood, it was home to jump rope, badminton, and tetherball.

  Friends however, were not allowed inside the house—ever. Not even to pee. Luckily, my friends’ parents felt the same way. I remember my friend Terri; she wasn’t even allowed to open her own refrigerator door when her parents weren’t home. Compared to her, I was spoiled.

  Back then, we usually hung out until the street lamps came on, which was precisely at nine. Once, my younger sister Autumn and I stayed out way past this time. Not because we were having too much fun to go home. It was out of fear. Fear of Skippy. You see Skippy was our neighbor’s son who spent most of his time in a hole he dug in his backyard. He stayed in there for hours at a time. We never found out what he did in there, but he scared the hell out of us just the same.

  Anyway, we saw him ambling towards us on our way home one night. With some quick thinking, we jumped behind a semi-trailer parked in front of a new construction home and waited holding our collective breath until he passed us. We ran all the way home.

  Unfortunately, our dad was waiting with his belt in hand, ready to refresh our curfew-forgotten memories. Fortunately, Skippy spooked him as well, so he let us off with a stern warning.

  I’m much older now, but I’ll admit I’m still freaked out about Skippy.

  My family and friends call me Sunny, although stormy better describes my life. I trip going up the stairs, I have rotten luck, chaos follows me, and I don’t have a lot of patience. This lack of patience is a big, reoccurring problem in my life.

  I discovered early on that I didn’t have the patience needed to achieve my lofty goals. Therefore, when I turned ten, I decided I would be a princess. It required no effort on my part. I already had dark brown hair and fair skin like Snow White. I could marry a handsome prince, live in a castle with turrets, have tons of jewelry like Elizabeth Taylor, and wear fancy gowns. Maybe even have a longhaired, white kitten named Duchess.

  Then my mom had to go and ruin everything. She told me either I had to be born into royalty, which I wasn’t, or I would have to marry a foreign prince and live in a different country. She took me to the library and showed me pictures of real life princesses. Not exactly Disney beautiful. Liars! So much for my easy, luxurious future.

  Years later, my parents split. With my fairytale life forsaken, I turned my depression into a new career goal, songwriter. I wrote lots of sorrowful lyrics that weren’t all that good. In fact, they didn’t even rhyme. Oh, well, there was always college. Right?

  College. Not only was it a waste of time, it tried my patience. Big time! Ignorant admissions people, freaking professors with thick accents, unbelievable amounts of reading were all frustrating as hell. Not to mention dealing with the obnoxious, pretentious students, especially those who kept insisting my deep green eyes were not natural, but the result of colored contact lenses. I swear to this day only my family members and boyfriend believe they are not color enhanced!

  To deal with my impatience I did many things including swearing, consuming alcoholic beverages, and sleeping on my books, hoping osmosis would work. It didn’t. It took me around six years to finish college. I must say though I put a lot of effort into that final year.

  So, there you have it. That’s the reason I’m sitting at a desk at 6:55 a.m. this February morning, drinking lousy, lukewarm coffee, freezing my butt off at Ageless Grace Nursing Home. Suddenly being an ugly princess is very appealing.

  Chapter 1

  Friday, February 10th

  This is my first job as a bookkeeper and I have already been here three years too long. Let me tell you, on the inside, it’s no picnic. The only grace in this place is the Admissions Director, Donna Dombrowski. She keeps me sane and focused. Granted it is a tough assignment. Both of us are single, and not always loving it. Donna is a young thirty and I’m an old twenty-eight. Some days I feel like fifty.

  We have a lottery going to see who weds first. That would be kind of cool, except everyone else in the office wanted in on it. Odds on favorite is Donna. Okay, so she is blonde, has much bigger breasts, and is three inches taller than my five foot, two. Fact is, she has only been with her auto mechanic boyfriend, Chuck Nolan, for three months. In two months’ time, Sam Sheridan and I will have been together for three years! Exactly why we are still together puzzles me. I’m thinking it might have something to do with the fact he looks like an Abercrombie model and can be pretty amazing in bed. Other than that, he drives me crazy, and not in a good way. Our relationship is much like a faulty shower with surging water—very hot and very cold. If we could compromise on a pleasing temperature, everything would be great but I’m not even sure if that’s possible. So, not being a particularly optimistic woman, I placed my bet on Donna to win.

  I started mornings manning the reception desk. I hated this more than cabbage rollups, and they make me want to vomit. The front door opened and trouble walked up to the window separating the reception desk from the lobby.

  “Is Summer Kramer in?” a tall, gaunt woman in her sixties rudely inquired. She looked like she reached the point of death and kept on going.

  “I’m Summer,” I said with my usual Friday morning cheer.

  She cleared her throat and shoved an envelope at me. “I don’t agree with this bill.”

  I opened the envelope and pulled out last month’s statement. The current statement went out two weeks earlier. I looked up at her expecting her to continue but she did not. The phone rang. I let it ring out to the floor. I ignore the phones before 7:00, if I can get away with it. I think the inventor of the multi-phone line should be drawn and quartered. Two more lines rang simultaneously and I waited until the green lights turned red before responding.

  “What don’t you agree with?” I asked as politely as I could for this ungodly hour.

  “The amount,” she stated matter-of-factly.

  “This is last month’s statement. You should have received this month’s statement a week ago.”

  “Oh, because I already paid this amount,” she said tapping on the paper I was holding.

  “Uh-huh. Now you owe,” I took a moment and called up the account on the computer, “Ah, $5,689.”

  She opened her purse and took out her checkbook. It took her fifteen minutes to write the check and then she shoved it in my face. I took the check and read it. She made it out for $568.90. I wanted to slap her silly.

  “You wrote down the wrong amount,” I told her, trying not to sound bitchy.

  “Oh. Well, I don’t like to waste checks, so I’ll pay the difference next month.”

  She turned and swiftly left the building before I could dispute her
reasoning. Great, I would have to answer for that in next month’s meeting. I saw Donna waltz through the front door. She was wearing two different colored pumps, a blue one, and a black one. The colors may have been overlooked, however one was a closed-toe pump, and the other was a peek toe version.

  “Hey, what’s with the shoes,” I cajoled.

  She looked down and her mouth dropped open. “Oh crap! I have a family coming in, in ten minutes to sign an admission packet. I had a late night. Chuck stayed over and I dressed in the dark.” She opened her office door and disappeared inside.

  The front door ding-donged obnoxiously, as it does anytime anyone nears the entrance. This is a precaution, installed to warn staff that a resident is trying to escape from this hellhole. I looked up and saw a sober looking man of forty approaching my window. He was wearing a tight knit cap, holding in greasy, peppered-colored hair. I cringed involuntarily. Last month his mother had lice and I was reasonably sure she had gotten it from him. Her hair was now six inches shorter and free of nits but my head still itches just thinking about it.

  “May I help you?” I asked, sliding my chair backwards.

  “Which room is my mother in? Mrs. Maples.”

  I looked up on my cheat sheet on the wall, which was never completely accurate. Nurses weren’t great on communicating room changes; therefore, I always did a quick bed check, at least in the Medicare wing, after I worked the phones.

  “Looks like she was moved to room 110A,” I said, sliding back even further, hitting the copy machine sitting directly behind me. He nodded and walked down the east corridor and I breathed a sigh of relief. I pulled my sleeves down further over my hands and went back to work on the computer, rapidly typing in numbers on the keyboard, increasing my risk for carpal-tunnel syndrome with every stroke.

  At 7:30 a.m., I packed up and was ready to leave the desk for my closet-sized office. Shantel, the receptionist, was late and the phones were maddening. Shantel’s life made mine look fantastic. She left home at fifteen to move in with her twenty-year-old boyfriend Leroy, had her first baby, a boy, at sixteen, and at seventeen, gave birth to a girl. Leroy went out one night for some smokes, and decided they weren’t quite enough. He held up the 7-Eleven with a stolen gun. With Leroy serving time in the Milwaukee County Jail for armed robbery, Shantel convinced her mother to take her back in, along with her two small children, Randy and Sharese. That was ten years ago, and rumor has it that Leroy will be out soon and Shantel is worried he’ll come around.

  Five phone lines lit up at once. I punched the button on line 2. Some doctor wanted me to page someone. God help me but I couldn’t understand a word he said. I put him on hold and prayed for Shantel. Line 3 was for me and I put it on hold. Line 4 was for me and I told the person I wasn’t in yet. Line 7 was an irate family member, which I passed off to the administrator, who wasn’t in. Line 10 was for me and I hung up on them. Just as line 2 was ringing impatiently with the foreign doctor, Shantel strolled through the doors. I got up and left the mess for her, telling her I had to take the call on line 3. A narrow escape indeed.

  The day went by quickly and before I knew it, it was time to clock out. I straightened my messy desk, tossed my three empty cans of diet soda in the overflowing garbage, and pushed in my chair. I grabbed my hooded, wool coat and put it on as I walked to the time clock. The clock never read the same as my watch. I think they set it backwards in the middle of the day so the employees have to work longer. I tapped my foot until the clock read 3:30 p.m. and I slid my card in.

  I couldn’t wait to leave. Snow was approaching. I could tell because my knee ached (old roller skating accident) and it was already quite dark outside. I pulled my hood over my head, my scarf over my mouth and rushed out the door. In doing so, I collided with a man on the sidewalk near the entrance. He automatically reached out to grab me as I slid on the ice.

  “Whoa!” he said joyfully, “what’s the hurry?”

  “Hot date,” I lied.

  He smiled wide, showing off perfect, white teeth; a smile that reached his warm chestnut brown eyes and turned my legs to noodles.

  “You aren’t Summer Kramer, are you?” he asked, still holding my arm.

  “Yeah, have we met before?” I said through my scarf. It was a mystery to me. For all I knew, he could be one of my neighbors considering how infrequently I saw any of them.

  “Not exactly. My dad, Eugene Harper, is always talking about a pretty, dark-haired bookkeeper with green cat eyes.”

  Great, I had no problem attracting a seventy-year-old man with incontinence. I was ready to go home and shoot myself when he said, “I can see why.”

  Hold on Sunny; let’s not get too excited I told myself. He’s probably married with eight, creepy children. I grinned like an idiot under my scarf and felt my nose start to run from the cold. “Well, gotta run, it’s freezing out here.” I held my scarf closer to my face to prevent nose leakage.

  “Wait, I needed to speak with you,” he said before I ran off. “Will you be here tomorrow morning?”

  “No,” I said. Absolutely not. Wild horses carrying Prince Charming couldn’t drag me into work on Saturday. And based on his looks and mannerisms, he might be Prince Charming at that. “I’ll be in on Monday.”

  “Well, it’ll have to be then.” He nodded and continued his walk to the front entrance. I glanced over my shoulder just as he was walking inside, and I could have sworn he saw me watching him.

  Chapter 2

  I live in one of the newer apartment complexes that are popping up all over the city. Named Deer Creek for its proximity to the creek of the same name, it offers an enormous clubhouse, which I never utilize, pool, and affordable, adequate-sized apartments. I can’t throw parties on my salary, and even if I could, I have no one to invite.

  My sister Autumn and I shared my current two-bed, one-bath apartment until she moved in with her boyfriend, Alan Leif, a Milwaukee county police investigator, homicide division. When introduced to him, I actually laughed out loud. I mean, seriously? If they got married, her name would read Autumn Leif. She did not appreciate the humor. He seemed used to it.

  Autumn and I are like two peas in a pod. Now I share the apartment with a slob named Brandi and I really, really, miss my little sister. I admit I was desperate for the rent money at the time. Brandi is twenty-eight with the maturity level of a girl seventeen. She enjoys all fads, some of her own creation.

  Last month she bought a bunny to match her rabbit fur coat. When I came home one evening to find bunny poop scattered like Cocoa Puffs throughout the apartment I told her she was welcome to keep Mr. Fluffy if she moved out immediately. She managed to pawn it off on a college kid living one floor down. Actually, I love all animals. I just don’t appreciate living like one.

  I opened the apartment door and enjoyed the rush of warm air as I stepped onto the tan plush carpeting. I did most of the decorating and it was in comfortable earth tones with a few splashes of bright colors reminding me of autumn leaves.

  “Hi, Sun,” Brandi called from the kitchen. I hated to be called Sun and I narrowed my eyes at her wishing she could read my mind or vaporize into thin air. Something smelled disgusting and I swear I saw smoke in the room.

  “What in the world are you cooking,” I asked, knowing I had no intention of eating it. I turned the fan on over the stove.

  “Pot roast. It’s almost done.” She opened the oven door to show me and I gagged on the fumes. “The carrots got a little burned.”

  A little burned? They looked as black as the pan. The phone rang and I grabbed it. “Oh. Hi, Sam. Okay, see you in a bit.” I hung up and turned my attention back to Brandi. “Gee, Brandi, Sam made reservations at the Mariners Club tonight. I’d stay home but you know how hard it is to get in there.” Sam and I were going to eat a Wal-Mart rotisserie chicken he picked up on his way home from work.

  “That’s okay; I’ll save some for you.” She turned off the oven and opened a can of peas. These she ate cold out of the can.
br />   She seemed happy as a puppy with a milk bone, so I went to change my clothes. I wore corporate casual to work and casual, casual on dates. Jeans, turtleneck, bulky sweater, and wooly socks were the outfit of choice for tonight until I remembered my lie to Brandi. The Mariners Club had a strict dress code. “Shit!” I swore softly. I stuffed my comfy clothes in a tote bag, and slipped on my little black dress and spiked heels. Sam was going to think I was either nuts, or wanted sex.

  “Hot mamma,” Brandi said when I returned to the living room.

  I ignored her and went to the window to check if Sam was out front. My apartment had a private entrance, so waiting in a warm lobby when it was nineteen degrees outside was not an option. Minutes later I saw his red Silverado 4x4 pull up. He made no attempt to leave the vehicle, one of the reasons I wasn’t too fond of him. I waved to Brandi and left the apartment.

  I live on the third floor, which is a pain in the behind when bringing groceries home and even worse when the stairs are icy as they are tonight.

  Carefully, I walked down the stairs and just when I thought I had it licked, I slid down the last three steps and landed on my ass, busting the heel off one pump. Sam finally got out of the car to retrieve me. He wore a tan, Mohair overcoat, plaid cashmere scarf, and sensible shoes.

  “Why are you wearing those heels? Are you nuts?” he said without concern for my well-being, hands on hips looking down at me.

  “Don’t bother to ask if I’m all right,” I quipped back, already knowing I should turn around, go back upstairs to my apartment, and call it a night. Problem was, the pot roast would be waiting for me, and my stomach soured at the mere thought of it. I crawled onto my knees and pushed myself up.

  “Since you’re not crying and you’re standing, I can deduce that you’re fine,” he answered back, brushing a wayward strand of dark brown hair from his forehead.