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“Hey,” she said, her eyes fluttering open.
“Good morning.”
“Are you watching me sleep?” She wrinkled her nose at me.
“Only for a second. I just woke up.”
She stretched in the circle of my arms, and I hugged her closer, kissing the shell of her ear.
“What time is it?” she asked.
“It’s after eight.”
“Aubrey will be up for sure. She has a newborn.”
“Good point,” I said, the excitement I’d felt last night racing back through me. It reminded me of Christmas morning as a kid—having to wait until we could rip into packages and reveal something anticipated and wonderful. “Let’s get some ladders.”
Emily laughed, but she hopped up as quickly as I did. “Do I have time to run to my room and change?”
“Of course,” I told her. “I’ll just get some of the guys and some gear. Meet us down there.”
Not long after, we had a tall ladder on either side of the desk, and a plan. I climbed up one side and Fake Tom was up on the other, below us, Sasquatch, Brainiac, and Wiley were ready to receive the huge piece of art as we lowered it down. Emily and Aubrey stood to one side of the lobby with Lucy, Emily snapping pictures as we set up. The question would be how securely it was attached to the wall.
“How heavy do you think this thing is?” Fake Tom called to me.
“No idea.”
“Maybe we need a crane,” Lucy suggested. “I’ve got one—it’ll just be an hour or so to get it over here and set it up.”
“If it seems crazy heavy, we’ll get the crane,” I agreed. But I was too excited to think about what was probably the smartest and safest option, and a group of former F-18 pilots was unlikely to be the type to lean into taking things slow and easy. We shared a love of getting shit done and worrying about details only when necessary.
“We’ve got it,” Fake Tom assured her.
He and I both gripped the substantial frame and lifted. The piece wasn’t as heavy as I’d feared, and it came away from the wall easily. I moved to look behind it. “It’s on a wire,” I called to Fake Tom. “We just need to lift a little higher, and then out.”
It took a few tries, but eventually we got it lifted high enough to pass over the hooks that held the wire, and then we began lowering the enormous thing down to the hands waiting below. It was a little unwieldy, and I didn’t want to smash anyone below if we lost control of it. A few interested guests had begun to gather in the lobby to watch the process, and Aubrey guided them out of way in case we were to drop the thing.
Finally, Fake Tom and I came down and we all stood, staring at the painting as the guys held it upright in front of us. It was taller than I was, and more than twice that wide. I realized there weren’t many places to put the thing now that we had it down.
“Uh, okay, what now?” Brainiac stood holding up one side of the big thing.
“We examine it,” Aubrey said, moving close with Finn in her arms. She walked around the piece, Emily and Monroe close behind her, as the rest of us examined different parts of the painting.
“This is it!” Aubrey said, her voice rising from behind the painting. I moved around to join her. “Look!” She pointed to the top of the back of the frame, where a manilla envelope was affixed, blending in almost completely with the backing of the artwork.
“Lower it down, guys,” I suggested, and slowly, we laid the big thing down in the center of the lobby floor.
Monroe was closest when the piece was face-down, but she stepped aside and looked at Emily meaningfully. Emily’s smile grew wide and she knelt down to carefully remove the package from the back of the huge wood frame.
“What is it?” one of the guests asked, stepping close.
“It’s the treasure,” another one said, clearly having read about the resort before coming to visit.
“Open it!” Aubrey practically yelled.
“Aub?” I said, stepping close. “Maybe we should get this out of the way first? And then do this somewhere a little less public?”
Aubrey glanced around, taking in the interested guests and the painting taking up most of the floor of our lobby. “Yeah, okay.”
