Someone tried to kill a friend of Virginia Davies Clark in Virginia's museum. The killers are after the gold, a mysterious Civil War era quilt, jade jaguar, and a ceremonial jade dagger her friend just inherited. More murders take place because of the old quilt and the inheritance. The list of suspects includes a university professor and a few relatives of Virginia's friend. They all look suspicious and innocent at the same time. Tests on the gold indicate it came from Central America. Virginia's examination of the quilt reveals it was made in the mid-1800s in Texas. It holds a hidden map to a Mayan golden temple in an unexplored area of jungle in southern Mexico and northern Guatemala. It is a fabled Mayan temple of gold and the city of gold-El Dorado. With the backing of the police and the Smithsonian Central Security Service, Virginia and her colleague and archaeologist, Dr. Terry Sorenson, using photographs of the quilt blocks and the binding as maps, head for the jungles of Mexico and Guatemala in search of the fabled Mayan temple and city of gold.

When Virginia and Terry tromp through the jungle to locate the source of the Confederate gold supply and the fabled Mayan temple of gold, they must outsmart a corrupt undercover U.S. DEA agent, face a dangerous and violent drug lord, handle a very real Mayan curse, and fight unfriendly natives all of whom want them dead. The question is, using the hidden map in the quilt, can they find the mysterious temple and city of gold, and capture the murderer, before getting themselves killed?