While doing research for a book, Jessica comes out to an archaeological dig in New Mexico, a potential site for the lost golden city of Coronado. However, she finds more troubling issues than the desert sun. When local Indian guide Raymond Two Crows is found dead at the top of a cliff, almost everyone concedes it was an accident and the head of the diggings, Gideon Armstrong, determines not to let the story leak out before he's found what he's looking for.
This episode includes examples of the following tropes:
- Attempted Rape: Karen tells Jessica that Mr. Armstrong called her into his trailer on a pretense and had backed her into a corner before the warning shots Cynthia fired gave her an escape route.
- Blackmail Backfire: Raymond demanded a cut from the land sale Cynthia and Armstrong were going to make instead of what they were paying him, threatening to tell Gideon the truth. After the argument got physical and Raymond threw her into a wall, Cynthia grabbed a rock and rolled it upside his noggin, fleeing the scene (according to her memory) and coming back to see he'd died. She thought he was dead from the blow to the head, unaware that he'd actually drowned in a nearby cave pool.
- "Blackmail" Is Such an Ugly Word: Armstrong locks down the dig site after he discovers gold, refusing to let Jessica and Seth drive into town. When Jessica protests that this this kidnapping, Armstrong says that they're free to leave the site anytime they want, but not to use any of the vehicles present (all of which he owns) to pass through the desert unless they want grand theft auto charges laid against them.
- Did Not Die That Way: After looking at the body, Ray's initial cause of death appears to be damage from the fall he took. However, Jessica demonstrates that falling backwards as he had seemed to, Ray would have landed on a hidden ledge about three feet down and not onto the ground. Dr. Hazlitt, on a second examination of the body, finds evidence that he drowned instead. It turns out Cynthia had conked him with a rock and thought that had killed him, so she had Armstrong toss him off the cliff while doing the ghost routine to try and obscure the cause of death without realizing he'd drowned.
- Fake Nationality:
- An In-Universe example. So-called Native American guide Raymond Two-Crows turns out to not only know nothing about actual Native culture but also isn't even Native himself.
Seth: (having found a book owned by Raymond showing his last name to really be "Demarco") Hmm. One of those Indians from Naples.- Also, Dr. Armstrong masquerades at one point as a Native American ghost, while being neither. Tsk tsk.
- Ghostwriter: Benton, having heard so many wonderful things about Jessica's work from the other people at the site, offers her the privilege of ghostwriting his autobiography. She's...flattered?
- Gold Fever: Pointed out by name.
- Gideon suffers from it and locks down the camp after a golden artifact turns up. and Jessica notes that any complaints the diggers at the site have about Armstrong pretty much trapping them at the site seem to go away after more golden artifacts are found. Too bad they're planted.
- Benton suffers from a variation: Fame Fever, which leads him to bend to Gideon's will and not call the police for fear he'd lose out on the publicity from the artifacts they'd seemingly discovered.
- It's All About Me: Dr. Aubrey Benton is a celebrity archeologist who assumes that he's the most important person on the dig, that Jessica would love to ghost-write his autobiography, and that her belief that "an expert" was involved in planting the artifacts must be an accusation against him, and not the guy actually running the dig.
- Poor Communication Kills: Cynthia planned the nightly "show" so that her husband would believe the land had something valuable in it. She hoped that he would buy it quickly without informing anyone about the uncovered artifacts out of fear the owner would raise the price or refuse to sell. Only afterwards, when he had lost a large sum of money, would he discover the gold artifacts had been planted.
- Reverse Psychology: Cynthia and Raymond had planned the nightly appearance of a Native American figure chanting a curse to convince her husband that someone didn't want him to find something and to harden his resolve. Jessica explicitly refers to it as "reverse psychology."
- Slap-Slap-Kiss: There's some sharp words between a pair of graduate students on the dig, Karen and Steve. However, Jessica suspects they may be attracted to one another and the episode closes with Steve asking Karen to go on a trip with him, and her words being interrupted by kissing sounds.
- You Watch Too Much X: Seth's reaction to Jessica's theory about Steve and Karen's arguing is that she's been watching too many Clark Gable and Jean Harlow movies. Jessica replies that he's not been watching enough.
