Out of the Picture

by Tracy Gardner

  “Too fast, Savvy! I get what you’re doing, but slow down.”

  “He’s still behind us! He’s definitely following us.” She eased up on the gas pedal; she obviously couldn’t outrun the SUV.

  “Okay,” Skylar said, “we’ll get off at the next exit. We’ll go into a store or a gas station or whatever we find. No one’s going to mess with us around a bunch of people. If he follows us off the expressway, we’ll call Detective Jordan. I’m sure he can do something. When’s the next exit?”

  “A while, I think.” Savanna wracked her brain, trying to remember what they’d passed a few miles earlier. There were long stretches of nothing between Lansing and Carson.

  Skylar was tapping the screen on her phone. “Oh my God. The next exit isn’t for another twelve miles.”

  Savanna met her sister’s eyes. She was at a loss. “I mean, he isn’t technically doing anything. We keep driving, I guess. We’ll call the police if he tries something. Watch him.”

  Skylar had turned around backward in the front seat, watching the SUV.

  “Okay, that’s not safe. You need to stay buckled,” Savanna admonished.

  “Really, Mom? That’s your biggest concern right now?”

  Savanna shot her a look.

  “I’m fine. See?” Skylar shifted sideways and made an exaggerated show of displaying the still-fastened seat belt for Savanna to see.

  “Thank you.” They drove in tense silence for a while. Savanna signaled and moved back over to the passing lane to go around a slower car in the right lane.

  “He’s staying,” Skylar said.

  “What?”

  “He hasn’t changed lanes to stay with you. Maybe we’re just paranoid, Savvy. Speed up. I think we can lose him.”

  Savanna pressed the gas pedal. A quick check in the rearview mirror told her Skylar was right: the SUV was receding in the distance and still hadn’t changed lanes. “Okay, no one is following us. I’m sorry, I don’t know what got into me.”

  Savanna kept an eye on the mirror, relief building as the vehicle got smaller and smaller behind them. This whole experience was making her jumpy. It was probably just someone on a long drive, not paying attention to their own speed but matching hers without realizing it. She was sure she’d done that before too, her mind wandering while behind the wheel.

  “It wasn’t just you,” Skylar said. “I was running through possibilities in my mind, like, why don’t you have handfuls of thumbtacks in your glove box for us to throw on the road, or how fast would the police actually be able to find us if the guy tried to hit us? It was all that high security at the museum. It made us paranoid.”

  Savanna laughed. “That’s probably it.” The landscape had gotten hillier, and traffic continued to thin out. The SUV was nowhere in sight now. Besides Savanna’s car, only one other was visible, up ahead.

  “I think he’s gone,” Skylar said.

  “So we keep going, right? We shouldn’t get off now.” Savanna pointed to a green sign bearing the words Little Bear, pop. 3,205, ½ mile.

  “Right, keep going. Just in case, so we can make sure he’s long go—” Skylar’s words broke off and she grabbed Savanna’s arm. “No. Savanna—is that him?” Skylar’s voice rose at the end.

  Savanna looked at her sharply and then at the rearview mirror. “No,” she breathed. The black SUV was now behind her in the left lane, and gaining fast. Very fast.

  “Get off. Get off!” Skylar shouted, pointing at the exit they were approaching.

  Savanna made a quick check before switching lanes and moved over to the right, steering to follow the yellow car in front of them off the expressway. In her peripheral vision, she caught a flash of black, and the SUV was suddenly right beside them, next to Skylar in the passenger seat, driving on the shoulder and preventing Savanna from taking the exit.

  The entirety of the vehicle had dark-tinted windows. Whoever was behind the wheel was barely visible to them. Savanna tapped her brake, hoping she could slow down enough to zip behind the SUV and still catch the exit ramp she was just about past.

  The SUV immediately dropped its speed and veered over into her lane, hitting the passenger side of Savanna’s car and sending her to the left. Savanna let out an involuntary shriek and wrestled for control, straightening out on the left shoulder just in time to avoid going into the trees in the median of the divided highway. Her car was filled with the loud growl of rumble strips on the shoulder before she moved back into the left lane.

  Skylar’s window was shattered and the passenger door caved in, somehow still miraculously closed. The glass hadn’t yet fallen out of place but was a mass of tiny pieces, ready to crumble. Skylar had moved as close as she could to Savanna in the front seat, leaning away from the door.

  Savanna glanced quickly at Skylar, noting her sister’s wide-eyed stunned expression. “You’re okay. Are you okay?” She heard her own voice shaking.

  Skylar nodded.

  “Call Jordan, call 911.”

  Skylar was already dialing, her phone in her hand on speaker as it rang.

  The SUV had slowed when Savanna had, and now it was once again encroaching into Savanna’s lane.

  “Jordan.” The detective’s voice came on the line, and Skylar squeezed Savanna’s shoulder, getting her words out in broken bursts.

  “It’s Skylar. We’re being followed—on westbound I-22—A black SUV—Jordan, he hit us!”

  “We just passed the Little Bear exit,” Savanna shouted, pushing her car to speed up as much as it could, now going ninety-four miles an hour.

  The interstate widened by a lane, the trees down the median thinning to only a wide, grassy expanse, and Savanna could now see the opposing eastbound lanes on the other side of the expressway. Traffic was denser heading that direction; a sparse but steady stream of cars whizzed by. She eased off the gas, her little car protesting the high speed, and had a momentary rush of relief when the SUV abruptly dropped its speed and fell behind them. Savanna glanced at Skylar, and then her rearview mirror. The black vehicle matched her speed, but from two or three car lengths back.

  “We can see other cars now, Detective,” Savanna said, “on the eastbound side. Whoever hit us backed off a bit, but he’s still behind us.”

  “Stay with the traffic if you can,” Jordan said.

  “I’ll try.” Savanna took deep breaths, trying to slow her breathing. This was crazy. She moved over into the center lane, wanting to get away from the edge of freeway.

  A long, thick stand of pine trees dotted the landscape up ahead, the road curving into an incline on a hill. They wouldn’t be visible to the other cars soon, probably less than a half mile.

  Skylar saw it too. “Jordan, we’re going to lose the traffic in a minute. And there are still no cars on our side.”

  The SUV was now almost alongside them again, this time on Savanna’s side of the car.

  Savanna steered away, cutting the wheel a little too hard to the right as she tried to stay as far over in her lane as she could. Skylar, perched precariously near the console in the center of the car, lost her grip on her phone and it bounced out of her hand, landing somewhere out of sight.

  “—state boys on their way now. Hang in there.” Jordan’s voice came through the phone from under Savanna’s seat. “Don’t engage. Do what you can to stay away from the vehicle. Do you see any exit signs? Rest stops, anything?”

  “Nothing,” Savanna yelled to make sure he would hear her. She wasn’t taking her hands off the wheel for a second. “No exits, and westbound is empty—wait, I think I see a car way up there! Do you see it, Skylar?”

  Skylar peered into the distance. “Maybe? It’s past the trees, hard to tell.”

  This stretch of highway was always sparsely populated. How fast could the state police possibly show up to help? Should she just pull over and give them the paintings? But would t
he people in the SUV let them go free after that? There was no way. Not after they’d obviously seen her carrying the paintings in and out of the museum.

  They were now completely blocked from eastbound traffic by the thickening trees down the median.

  Skylar screamed as the SUV, now slightly ahead of her and moving into their lane, nearly made contact with Savanna’s front end. Savanna hazarded a glance into the cabin of the vehicle. There were two figures in the front seat, but she couldn’t see anything beyond that through the dark windows.

  Detective Jordan’s voice came from under the seat. “Do not stop, do you hear me? Stay calm. I have troopers eastbound approaching your location and another about a mile back, west of the Little Bear exit. Help is almost there.”

  Savanna felt the impact as the SUV side-swiped her little car a second time, and she gripped the wheel as tightly as she could, struggling to stay on the road. The other vehicle was bigger, heavier, and she was losing ground. Sparks flew past her window as the SUV steadily nudged her off the road again onto the right shoulder. Skylar’s window gave way, thousands of pieces of safety glass falling into the car.

  Skylar shrieked and braced herself with one foot on the door. “I love you, Savanna!”

  “What? Don’t say that!” That made things so much worse. “We aren’t going to die! Stop it!”

  Louder than the grass and vegetation under her tires, louder than the horrible scraping noise the SUV made as it refused to give up, Savanna’s heartbeat filled her ears, roaring over everything else.

  And then she heard the sirens. Was she imagining them? Drawn-out and high-pitched, they filled the air, and Savanna couldn’t tell which direction they came from. But they were getting louder.

  “Savanna, look!” Skylar pointed ahead of them, across the median on the eastbound side: two glorious blue state police cars, speeding with lights and sirens right toward them.

  And another in Savanna’s rearview mirror, red-and-blue lights flashing, impossibly, wonderfully close.

  Skylar was laughing. “Oh, I love you, Jordan.”

  “We love you, Jordan!” Savanna shouted.

  Savanna finally took her foot off the gas and came to a stop, with the nose end of the car pointing down the hill and toward the evergreens she’d have ended up in the middle of, if it weren’t for Detective Jordan.

  She watched the SUV speed away. There was no license plate.

  The two eastbound police cars used a utility-vehicle turn-around to cross the expressway median, and went after it.

  Savanna put her car in park and turned off the ignition, the keys jangling in her shaking hand. She looked at Skylar.

  Skylar threw her arms around Savanna, and Savanna hugged her sister back fiercely. Hot tears overflowed onto her cheeks, and she swiped at them as they separated.

  “I’m so glad we’re okay,” she whispered.

  “Me too. Oh my God, that was scary.”

  Savanna sniffled and cleared her throat. “I really thought we were done.”

  Skylar squeezed Savanna’s arm. “I knew we’d be okay.”

  “Really?” Savanna laughed. “That’s why you had to scream ‘I love you’ at me?”

  “Shut up.” Skylar pinched her where her hand rested on her arm. “You could have said it back, you know.”

  “I love you too.” Savanna rolled her eyes. “You know that.”

  Skylar reached under Savanna’s seat and pulled out the phone she’d lost in the commotion. “Jordan? Are you still there?”

  “Still here. I’m glad to hear you love each other. And me. Is the state trooper there with you?”

  Savanna turned and saw the uniformed officer approaching her car. “Yes. We’re all set, Detective Jordan, thank you so much. I don’t know what would have happened without you.”

  “No problem. You aren’t all set though. I’ll arrange a tow truck, and I want you to let the deputy bring you, and the paintings, straight here to me at the station. Unless either of you needs medical care? I had dispatch send an ambulance to check you out.”

  “I think we’re okay, actually,” Skylar said.

  “All the same, let them take a look. I heard the impacts.” His voice was firm. “I’ll see you both when you get here.”

  Savanna’s legs felt like wet noodles when she got out of the car. She let the paramedic lead her and Skylar over to the ambulance behind the state police car, but not before handing the trooper the two evidence-filled cases from her car.

  Half an hour later, on the way to Carson in the back of the police car, Savanna called Sydney, and she and Skylar took turns recounting what had just happened. Sydney was at work, but she told them Detective Jordan had just stopped in to see her and informed her he’d be stationing a police officer outside Caroline’s hospital room, and another would be checking on all three sisters.

  “This all sounds terrifying,” Sydney said. “I’m hope you’re both okay!”

  “We’re okay,” Savanna said. “Really. We’re almost back in town. Do you want to pick us up at the station? My car is out of commission for a while.”

  “I’m in the middle of grooming a Collie. But I’ll have Dad come get you, don’t worry.”

  “No!” Both Skylar and Savanna spoke at the same time.

  “Don’t tell Mom and Dad about this, please,” Skylar said. “There’s no reason to worry them.”

  “Um.” Sydney was quiet on the other end of the line.

  “Oh, Syd,” Savanna said. “You already told them?”

  “Guys! I had to! You were nearly killed!” The line went silent for a beat. “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay. We’ll see you soon,” Savanna said.

  Both sisters rode in silence for a while after they’d hung up with Sydney, hands linked on the seat between them.

  Skylar looked at Savanna. “She’s always been a tattletale, you know.”

  Savanna burst out laughing. “I know!”

  Skylar laughed with her, leaning her head back on the seat as they rolled into downtown Carson, both of them laughing too hard, and for much longer than made sense.

  While waiting for Harlan to pick them up, Skylar and Savanna filled Detective Jordan in on the details he wasn’t aware of, Savanna’s findings at the Lansing Museum of Fine Art.

  Jordan took custody of the paintings and told them he’d already been in touch with Caroline at the hospital and had gotten her permission to remove the rest of her collection from the house this evening as a precaution. They’d be secured here, at the station. “I heard back from the captain at the Michigan State Police post outside of Lansing. They unfortunately lost the vehicle.”

  “What?” Skylar was incredulous. “How?”

  “You know that multi-highway interchange at Grand Rapids? They lost track of it there.”

  Grand Rapids was the only major city between Lansing and Carson. Their unknown assailants were smart—they’d chosen that long, deserted stretch of road to attack them, and then had taken advantage of city traffic to disappear in further on.

  Jordan assured Savanna and Skylar they wouldn’t be in any danger despite the SUV getting away, reminding them not to worry if they noticed a police presence the next few days while he hoped to get things tied up.

  That evening, with Skylar back home with Nolan and Syd teaching a couples’ yoga class, Savanna took an excessively long hot shower, washing away the traumatic day. Leaving her hair to air dry, she moved about Sydney’s kitchen, preparing the best part of tomorrow’s brunch: cinnamon crunch coffee cake. Her dad had ordered her to take the day off of cooking and just show up, that he would make brunch, but Savanna enjoyed baking, and that was mainly what tomorrow’s meal involved. All three dogs, Fonzie, Princess, and Duke, camped out by her ankles, waiting for food to hit the floor. She layered the dough and the cream cheese and praline mixture in the baking dish, sprinkle
d the cinnamon-sugar mixture on top, and then covered it and popped it into the refrigerator, ready for the oven Sunday morning. She could mix up the icing while it baked tomorrow, and she’d prepare the omelets at her parents’ house just before eleven.

  Savanna set her laptop on the coffee table in Sydney’s living room, along with a big bowl of popcorn with the perfect balance of salt and butter, and scrolled through the TV menu until she found her favorite: streaming reruns of Columbo. She double-checked the front and back door locks, went to her room to grab a pair of fuzzy socks, and tied her now-dry hair up into a high ponytail.

  When she returned to the living room, she found the bowl of popcorn overturned on the floor. The poodles were eagerly chowing down, and Fonzie sat ten feet away, ears down, looking at her.

  “Mm-hmm,” Savanna said. “I think I can guess what happened here. It was a group effort, right?” She shooed the poodles away, scooping up the popcorn, and swiped a finger across Fonzie’s chin as she passed him on the way back to the kitchen. His snout was full of salt and butter, the same as the poodles; he just knew how to pretend better than they did.

  Savanna started over, this time settling into her pillows in front of the coffee table and guarding the new bowl of popcorn closely. “Never trust a dog to watch your food,” she told the three dogs, all watching her mournfully; they didn’t know she’d brought a treat for them from the kitchen. “Here. Much better for you than popcorn.” She distributed three of Syd’s famous Steak Sticks to the pack.

  Savanna powered on her laptop and logged into her account through Kenilworth, holding her breath and hoping Rob’s family hadn’t thought to disable her access yet.

  They hadn’t. She clicked through to the search feature and typed in Minkov’s name and the painting, Storm in Sochi. The screen populated with items from the database. Savanna scrolled down, going through each listing of the provenance information online. One of Savanna’s professors had best explained what a provenance really was by comparing it to a CarFax for works of art: documented, certified proof of every location and owner a piece previously had, every change of hands, every new authentication, and every expert who’d ever certified it as genuine.