The Inn Crowd's friend Margaret Ashworth, the head of the Marietta Historical Society, disappears after sharing an old Civil War-era newspaper clipping about a pouch of gold that went missing. As LuAnn, Tess, & Janice try to help Margaret's great-niece figure out what could have happened & where Margaret could be, LeAnn finds an old McGuffey Reader & a Confederate cipher wheel, seeming to point to the gold's —-& possibly Margaret's —- location. Meanwhile, Ashley, a former student of LuAnn's, is in town researching the Castle, a local historical site undergoing renovation. But Ashley's strange behavior makes LuAnn wonder if something more than a deadline is causing her distress.