Site Unseen: An Emma Fielding Mystery

Professor Emma Fielding is conducting an archaeological dig at Twin Coves Point, Maine, searching for a lost colony that her father spent his life trying to find. After discovering a 300-year-old silver spoon, Emma is confronted by a hostile local named Augie Clements, who warns her to stop digging. The next morning, Emma and her department head, Tony Markham, discover Augie’s body buried in one of the dig trenches. Special Agent Jim Connor of the FBI's antiquities division arrives, investigating the possibility that the murder is linked to the trafficking of artifacts. Emma becomes a person of interest because she was the last to see Augie alive and had a physical altercation with him. As the investigation proceeds, Emma’s research map is stolen and her hotel room is ransacked, suggesting someone is looking for 'the Queen's gold,' a mythical treasure Emma’s father previously debunked. Suspicion initially falls on Will Briggs, Emma's childhood friend and a diver with a criminal record, and Graham Tichnor, a local 'picker' known for forgeries. Tensions rise when a rare 17th-century pitcher is stolen from the site and a suspicious fire breaks out at the home of Emma’s stepmother, Pauline. Tony Markham, who rescued Pauline from the flames, uses the escalating danger as a pretext to shut down the dig, citing student safety. However, the mystery deepens when Graham Tichnor is found dead, poisoned by a rare plant that Emma coincidentally wrote a definitive research paper on. Emma is nearly framed for the crime until her students, Carey and Joe, use drone footage to prove Tichnor was alive after Emma left his house. Emma eventually realizes that the 'international art theft ring' theory proposed by Jim Connor was actually misinformation planted to distract her. She deduces that the real culprit is Tony Markham. Tony, driven by a lifelong resentment of Emma’s father and a desperate need for professional glory, murdered Augie and Tichnor to clear his path to the site. He intended to shut down Emma's dig, wait for the scandal to die down, and then 'discover' the colony himself. In a final confrontation at the dig site, Tony admits to the murders and attempts to kill Emma, but she is saved by Jim Connor and her students. The film concludes with Emma finding a theodolite, the final proof of the colony's existence, and a blossoming mutual respect between her and Agent Connor.