The Millionaire's Tainted Legacy

Trouble Brewing

Tito looked around the galley at the kids, who were crowded into the main salon on the bench seats, eating breakfast. But before he could say anything, Jack spoke up.

"I heard someone up on the deck last night. So did Tito, but when he took a look around, no one was there."

The group got quiet, everyone looking down at their plates, and Tito wondered, were they all up on the deck last night? Because the sense of guilt in the galley was palpable.

"I can understand wanting some quiet time, or just to breathe the air," Jack continued. "But I'm betting whoever was up there didn't bother to put on a life jacket." He waited for that thought to settle in, before adding, "And even if they did, it's still dangerous to be walking around on the deck alone at night. You don't realized how easy it is to trip and fall overboard, or how quickly a current can catch you and pull you farther away from the boat.

"Sure, if you fell in and called out, Bailey and I would probably hear you.  Probably. But I don't want to take those chances. That's why once we call it a night, you stay in your berths. Understood?"

They all shifted uneasily in their seats, and there were a few murmured responses of Sure and OK. None of which was easing Tito's concern at all.

"All right, listen up," Tito said. "Jack may think someone was up there just to stare at moon, but I know better. I can only think of one reason why any of you would be sneaking up onto the deck after dark when you had all been specifically warned not to." His gaze shifted to Logan. "I told all of you I won't tolerate drugs on this trip."

"Wait," Jack said, "you think one of these kids was up there smoking weed?"  He frowned, considering.  "I didn't smell anything, but if the wind was blowing in the right direction I wouldn't have necessarily."

"Yeah," Tito said. "I think one or more of these kids was on deck last night smoking weed." He paused. "And I don't hear anyone speaking up to deny it."

Marcus looked up then, his fourteen-year-old-face sincere. "I wouldn't do that. I want to be a lawyer. I'm not messing around with drugs."  He looked over at Jack, then, who had been his mentor all summer working at the law firm. "Honest, I don't mess around with drugs at all. You know my older sister OD'd. I would never."

"Ok, Marcus," Jack said, resting a hand on the kid's shoulder. "I believe you."

"You don't trust us," Logan said, directing it to Tito, who was still watching him. Tito didn't want to assume it was Logan, but he was the only one of the kids who was in the program because of drugs - using them and dealing them in his neighborhood. That and boosting cars to be stripped by his father and his uncle, although nobody had been able to prove that.

"Trust has to be earned," Tito said.

"And you don't think we earned your trust all summer? Then why are we even on this trip?"

At the moment, Tito thought, that was a damn good question.

"You understand that we're not in the U.S. anymore, right? The drug laws are different here in the in Bahamas. Stricter than other places in the Caribbean, that's for sure."

He glanced over and caught Emma rolling her eyes. "My stepmother take trips to the Caribbean all the time," the girl volunteered. "She says it's easy to buy drugs. It's practically room service at her fancy hotel."

"Well good for her," Tito said, and wondered how he was supposed to make any headway with these kids when all of them either had parents who were too self-absorbed to pay attention to what they were doing, like Emma's, or parents, like Logan's, who had felony rap sheets of their own. Or like Diego, he mused, whose parents' rights had been terminated by the court when he only two years old, and he'd already been through more than a dozen foster homes by the age of thirteen.