Skip Case (David Dean Mysteries)

Tuesday, May 4th, Five years later.

Ouray, Colorado

"It's been five years tonight since Jeff died," Cynthia Dean said to her husband. "Do you mind if I have a manhattan?"

"This isn't San Francisco; it's Ouray, Colorado."

"No, but it's even nicer here."

"I don't mind if you have more than one, but now that we're married, I don't intend to be as much a gentleman as the last time you drank manhattans."

Cynthia laughed. "That seems a lifetime ago." David and Cynthia Dean, now husband and wife, and owners of Bird Song, a bed and breakfast in Ouray, Colorado, were seated in the Tundra Room of the recently restored Beaumont Hotel. She smiled and then asked, "You're not jealous?"

"Of Jeffrey Byrne? No. He was your husband for half your life and the father of your son," he answered. "I'm just tickled pink to be the relief pitcher." He was going to say, "for the late innings," but thought better of it.

She nodded. "We don't talk about those years very much-my life before I met you."

"Those are your memories, not mine," he said, a tad defen­sively. "Besides, we always seem too busy with our todays to do much looking back to yesterdays."

"Do you think that's the way it should be?" she asked.

The waiter brought two manhattans before Dean could answer. After the drinks were placed before them, he changed the subject. "Should I toast Jeffrey Byrne, or at least his memory?"

She thought a moment. "No. He's been replaced-complete­ly."

"You seldom mention Jeff-only in reference to something else-never talk directly about him, or his death."

"It's not that I don't think of him occasionally but that was another life." She paused. "I guess I had some issues too-blam­ing him for his own death. At first I blamed the way I thought he died-doing something stupid and irresponsible-swimming at night."

"We all do something on the spur of the moment once in awhile."

"But if I'd looked closely at what they said took place, I'd have seen that just wasn't something Jeff would have done. Then, to make matters worse, I doubted him. I truly thought he'd skipped out on Randy and me and taken that money. It wasn't so much a question of my not being loyal to him, I began to question how well I really knew the man."

"There were some pretty strong reasons for you to think of the possibility he might have skipped. All these police-type guys were chasing after him."

"But then out in Colorado when I learned he'd been mur­dered, I still blamed him, in a different way. He died because he was protecting me." She twisted the stem of her glass. "Jeff never mentioned finding the money, not even after he thought it had been returned-just because of some silly sense of not placing me in harm's way. Think what that said to me-he didn't think I was capable of handling that information."