Silver Wilderness Range — Kieran York

Sheriff Royce Madison is dispatched to a home on the outskirts of Timber City. The call is to remove a vagrant. Once there, Royce is perplexed. Seated outside on her own porch is an elderly woman named Daisy Barnaby. She had been the owner of that home for her entire life â€" and it had belonged to her family for at least a century. But now, Royce discovers, it had been turned over to the assisted living home where the octogenarian was recently sent. Talking with the woman convinced Royce that it had all been done without Miss Barnaby's permission. And Daisy swore that she had not signed anything relinquishing her property. Nor was she senile, she insisted. The senior citizen did not seem impaired in any way to the sheriff. But there was more. Daisy disclosed that one of the patients residing in the Silver Wilderness Residence had been missing under dubious circumstances. Royce was not going to dismiss any crime in Timber County â€" real or imagined. Miss Daisy Barnaby was a friend of Royce's grandmother. And she had been a teacher for nearly her entire life. She had not only been Royce's father's teacher, but had also been Royce's grade school teacher. Daisy had always been a responsible citizen, and of sterling character. So was it all a mistake, an illusion? Or would the facts show that Miss Barnaby was indeed of sound mind? The sheriff had every intention of finding out.