The expanded third season picks up six months after the events of season two and follows Lt. Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee as they investigate the disappearance of two boys, with only an abandoned bicycle and blood-stained patch of ground left in their wake. Meanwhile, Bernadette Manuelito attempts to settle into her new life 500 miles from home with the Border Patrol, but stumbles across a conspiracy involving human and drug smuggling with far-reaching implications.
Picking up from where the last season left off, security realizes that a gun was fired in Ed's suite, as Danny and Ed's daughter realize they have deeper feelings for each other than either of them wanted to admit. Samantha realizes what trouble she's in when one of her high roller clients rolls into the hotel's beach front resort in Hawaii and rolls up a half a million dollar bill and threatens to leave it in her lap, along with the dead stripper in his room.
Now the Montecito has been sold to inexperienced young widow-heiress Monica Mancuso, who had it thoroughly renovated, Ed who stayed on as general manager is worried about the top-secret reopening, especially after two recent hold-ups in Indian casinos, but Monica refuses any delay so he can work in new staff. Most old key personnel has left. Danny now heads his late dad's contracting company McCoy Construction, but accepts to return as Ed's right hand, and rehires Mike -who was parking valet- and Sam, whose clients were deserting her, only Ed's daughter refuses. The boys soon find proof the construction crews have been infiltrated as there are at least two officially dead men and computer chips have been planted to cause a blackout one minute after the grand reopening starts, far more sophisticated then in either Indian casino heist.