Some Karma With That Luck?

Nick Ruscutto knew luck played a big part in his life. He enjoyed the good and endured the bad, but these days he was hoping karma might step in to even things out. Twelve years on the force, rising to detective, had ended with a stray bullet of his missing the bad guy and hitting the hostage.

A new career as a private eye had him sitting in a van on his current case. Woman suspects fiancee of cheating, common but tedious. She had a trust fund and he had a purple Scion, following him proved easy.

Three days of surveillance had led to nothing but a case of sleep deprivation. This morning he pulled up to the house where the Scion still sat in the driveway, and settled in for a wait. Soon his subject came out pushing a couple of garbage cans, deposited them on the curb and left.

Nick pulled out his laptop and powered up the GPS unit he had placed on the car the night before. He tracked the target until he arrived at work. A relaxed Nick did a quick look through e-mails, checked the lotto numbers, and sports scores from the night before.

Nick wasn’t savvy enough to hack a computer, though he knew people who could for a price, but it was amazing what could be found in the garbage. Latex gloves were mandatory in this mess as he sorted food from paper.

Nick was tossing the lottery ticket away when he noticed the numbers, they seemed very familiar. A quick check confirmed the winning numbers! He was rich! A scream ripped through the neighborhood. All the bad luck he had endured was about to pay off, karma was real! And then he noticed the date on the ticket, last week’s drawing.