D.D. couldn’t swallow.

“You should come over for dinner sometime,” Alex said.

D.D. finally got it: the whispers, the exchanged glances … “Phil sold me out. Told you the quickest way inside my pants is through my stomach.”

“Didn’t even cost me thirty pieces of silver,” Alex confirmed cheerfully. “You should still come over for dinner.”

“I don’t date fellow detectives.”

“I’m not a detective.” He smiled at her. “For the next month, I’m just playing the part on TV.”

“Problem with dating another detective,” she continued as if she hadn’t heard him, “is that all you end up doing is talking shop.”

“We can talk food. What I enjoy cooking, what you enjoy eating.”

“I enjoy eating everything.”

“Works for me.”

She eyed him skeptically. “Don’t let my current good mood fool you; I’m a bitch most of the time.”

“Don’t let my current charm fool you; I get as pissed off as the next guy.”

“Why the classroom?” she asked. “Why leave the field for the classroom?”

“Had a wife. Wanted kids. More traditional hours seemed a good idea at the time.”

“What happened? She change her mind about Bolognese sauce?”

“Couldn’t get pregnant. When my wife couldn’t become a mother, she decided she didn’t want to be a wife either. We split amicably two years back.”

“You’re still teaching.”

“I like it.”

“But you’re here now.”

“I like this, too.”

“That’s awfully likable,” D.D. said with a scowl.

“Which is why you should come over for dinner.”

“I don’t do kids,” she warned. “I’m too old, too cranky.”

“Perfect, because I was just hoping for lots of sex.”

D.D. laughed, surprised and a little charmed. Laughter felt good after eighteen hours of working a crime scene. So did lunch. “I’ll think about it,” she said finally. She took a bite, chewed, swallowed. “Now, back to the matters at hand: What do we make of nine-year-old Ozzie Harrington?”

“Kid’s tricky,” Alex said at last.

“Kid’s dead.”

“We’ve already had allegations of animal cruelty and petty arson. I’m guessing there’s bed-wetting in there somewhere, which makes him a textbook serial killer.”

“Dexter thought the barbecue accident was really an accident,” D.D. countered.

“Dexter fidgeted uncontrollably every time we mentioned Ozzie’s name. Kid gave him the heebie-jeebies. He was just trying to be polite about it.”

“He said Patrick and Denise could control Ozzie. Also, that Ozzie worshipped his older brother Jacob. Seems unlikely, then, that Ozzie would turn on them, especially one by one like that.”