Nowhere To Go

Nowhere to go

I’d done it! I was going to get away with it!

My crimes were fairly innocuous - I had siphoned money from the megacorporation I worked for. I knew eventually they would find out about it, but the amounts were so small I got away with it for a very long time. By the time they started to ask questions, I had amassed enough to buy a boat, leave the country, and live like a king on the run.

Now here I was, on the boat, the cargo hold filled with money. Once I made it to international waters, I was free!

Then I heard female laughter behind me as I was heading out of the harbor and out to the open ocean. I was alone on the boat, so how could this be?

When I turned, my jaw dropped.

“Got you,” she said mockingly, smiling, pulling on her ponytail to make sure there wasn’t any water. I trembled and saw the handcuffs on the seat near where she was resting her bare feet. 

It was Cynthia, the company’s fraud investigator, who had the power to take employees into custody. I had not officially resigned from the company, so I was still eligible for her to capture me without the police being directly involved in the loss of my freedom.

“So,” she said, laughing again. “I imagine once I get you into these handcuffs and go below, I will find all that cash you took.”

I looked around. “What do you mean, when you get me handcuffed? I could shoot you and dump you overboard.”

She laughed again. “I doubt there’s even a gun on this boat, Ryan. Still, you’re not a violent guy. Now, put the boat in neutral and surrender. You’re caught and you know it.”

My heart was already fully sunken. I knew she was right - I couldn’t bring myself to hurt her to get free, so she’d defeated me the moment I saw her on the boat.

“There’s nowhere to go,” she told me. “You can’t outswim me, you can’t run away on the boat. You’re my prisoner.”

I put the boat in neutral and she stood, picking up the handcuffs. I turned to her.

“I surrender.”

“Oh, I love the sound of that,” she said, turning me around and pulling my hands behind my back. She handcuffed me, officially ending my flight and making me her captive.

“You’re under arrest, Ryan,” she told me, sitting me down. She tied my feet with rope from my own boat, then moved toward the controls. “Back we go, to the office first, then to jail for you, bad little boy.”