I gave a little shake of my head. "What?"
Bishop looked back to his phone. "Hard to look civilized when you're beating the hell out of your own brother."
I snuck a quick glance at Joel and paused. He still had that same ominous look, except now, it was aimed at Bishop. "The question is," Joel said, "which brother first."
From the door, Jake gave a derisive laugh. "Take your pick. But no one's beating the hell out ofme."
Joel said, "You sure about that?"
"Hell yeah," Jake said. He turned his attention back to Bishop. "And who says he'd win?"
Again, Bishop lifted his gaze from his phone. He looked from Jake to Joel, as if considering the question.
Unable to stop myself, I looked, too, trying to see what he saw. Both guys were both tall and muscular, with a certain attitude that I couldn’t quite place. If I were a guy, I wouldn’t want to face off with either one of them.
Finally, Bishop said. "My money?" He looked to Jake. "Sorry, it's on Joel."
"Your ass," Jake said, sounding almost insulted now. "Why him?"
Bishop only shrugged. "Because he's motivated."
"And me?" Jake said.
Bishop looked back to his phone. "You're just dicking around."
I looked back to Joel. Hedidlook motivated – to killbothof his brothers and bury the bodies in the back yard.
I couldn't say I blamed him. In fact, I was feeling pretty motivated myself. And, I had a nice supply of shovels in the shed out back.
Bishop pushed away from the wall and shoved his phone back into his pocket. He looked to me and said, "As far as your visitors…"
"Which visitors?" I asked. "Officer Nelson? Or my aunt and uncle?"
He gave me a deadpan look. "You got the police breaking in, too?"
Just great. Sarcasm. My favorite.I looked to Joel.
In a tight voice, he said, "What my brother'stryingto say, is that he knows how they're getting in."
