Chapter 1
“I’ve never won the lottery, but then again, I’ve never forgotten a face” thinks Carl Engstrom while he’s eyeing those lotto tickets. She was in a hurry, he could see that. Racing through the store at a dead heat, fumbling with her extra-large soda, then grabbing a pack of gum and not even glancing at the brand. She buys her stuff with a card, but, like it’s an afterthought, hands him eight dollars and says, “Four Superball lotto tickets.” Carl takes her cash, steps from the counter, turns away to print them on the store’s official State of North Dakota Superball lotto ticket machine, but she’s gone before they’re done; out the door, back in her yellow Mustang that’s merging into traffic. Carl, in disturbed contemplation, lays the tickets on the counter, “A coincidence? Sure,” he thinks “Folks forget shit all the time.” He glances at the jumble of junk under the front shelf; crumpled baseball caps, car keys, designer sunglasses, credit cards. “Still,” he thinks, “no one leaves their lotto tickets.” And, why would they? If you just wagered eight bucks on the chance to be a multi-millionaire would you abandon the pursuit in thoughtless indifference?
Then it hits him; hard, his heart’s racing. “This isn’t forgetting, Carl insists. It’s fate, passing me the baton in race where I’m a runnin the last lap!” This lady leaves Carl Engstrom, manager of the Big Sky Kum and Go filling station in nowhere North Dakota, four Superball lotto tickets and one of them will make him rich.
