Stolen Prey

house, and her name. It was unclear if the police had been able to track her through something said by one of the others. In any case, she’d decided not to risk the Ramada, and had gone to the rental office.
    F ED E X MADE two separate deliveries that morning, totaling more than a half million dollars. She moved the gold out to her car, and headed for Mom’s.
    The thing about Mom’s was, you could see the driveway from a long way out. She stopped at a convenience store, peed one last time, got three bottles of water and a submarine sandwich, went to Mom’s, but stopped five blocks short and parked.
    She was patient. There was too much involved to be hasty, and she took the quiet time, with the sandwich, to plot out hernext moves. If either the gang or the police had her name, and she’d have to assume they did, she’d have to drive out to New York with her share of the gold. Turicek’s share, too. That was only fair, she thought: he was
her
partner, not Sanderson’s or Kline’s.
    With that much gold, an ID would not be a problem. There were several Eastern European consulates where she could buy a completely legitimate passport for a couple thousand dollars. Just a matter of locating the right guy, and again, with the gold, that would be simple enough.
    Then where? Prague, she thought. Maybe Budapest. Romania … maybe not. She wanted a solid legal system, with at least some respect for the privacy of safe-deposit boxes. Latvia?
    She’d been there three hours and was beginning to feel a little bladder pressure when she saw Sanderson arrive. She sat up, watching intently. Nothing moved. Nothing moved…
    S ANDERSON OPENED the door and Albitis stepped inside and asked, “What’s going on?”
    Sanderson thought it would look bad, so she stuttered, “Ah, mmm, I’m moving the gold. I’m afraid the police are going to find this place. They’re just everywhere.”
    “How do you know they’re not watching you?”
    “I was very careful,” Sanderson said. “Unless they had an airplane, they couldn’t have followed me.” She explained about driving down the dusty gravel roads, and Albitis came around.
    “All right,” she said. “But: I want our share of the gold right now. Mine and Ivan’s. I’m leaving. I’m heading for California,and I’m getting a boat out of San Francisco. So let’s start dividing it up.”
    Sanderson said, “But … that’s not fair. Ivan’s dead. You get one-third now—”
    “Ivan was my partner. I get his,” she said. “You still get plenty.”
    “Oh, no…”
    S ANDERSON WAS bigger and stronger than Albitis, but Albitis had a kind of feral toughness that frightened Sanderson; and Albitis began crowding the other woman, not realizing that Sanderson was experiencing the schizophrenic break, and finally, when Albitis reached out and pushed Sanderson, Sanderson struck back with a wild roundhouse punch that bounced off the back of Albitis’s head, not having much effect, and Albitis screamed and launched herself at Sanderson, fingernails flashing, and they went right to the floor, punching and screaming.
    Sanderson was better on the floor, since she was stronger. Albitis finally managed to wrench herself free and, being quicker, got to her feet and ran into the bedroom where the safe was: Daddy’s guns.
    Sanderson knew exactly where she was going, looked at the back door. The door was locked, and she’d have to fit a key into it. Albitis was between her and the front door. She panicked and pulled open the nearest door, the one that went to the attic, and as she heard the mechanical ratcheting as the .45 was cocked, she ran up the stairs.
    The stairs were a straight shot, eighteen steps straight up: the entry into the attic was simply a hole in the floor, wrapped onthree sides by a banister. The attic, which had been Sanderson’s bedroom when she was a teenager, was full of junk. She looked around wildly, anything that she could use to defend herself, heard Albitis start up the stairs, shouting, “Kris! Kris!”
    Daddy’s golf clubs, nearly twenty years old and covered with dust, were poking out of his old Golden Golphers–themed golf bag, propped against the wall behind the back banister. She pulled out the biggest one, an original Big Bertha, raised it over her head, looked over the banister, and Albitis was right there, nearly at the top of the stairs with the .45 in her hand.
    Albitis shouted, “Kris! I don’t want—”
    Sanderson didn’t hear any of