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Lola, of course, had a mind of her own. And her mind was set on Marvin, something she confided in him when they were alone. The confession led to a kiss, and for a man bound by honor, to overwhelming guilt. Marvin told Lola of the pact, explained that while he adored her, he could never be with her, and asked if friendship might not be enough to fulfill them both.
Rudy did not act so gallantly.
He asked Lola to marry him, telling her that Marvin did not harbor romantic feelings for her, and that the pact had been Marvin’s idea in the first place, simply a way for him to gracefully avoid her unwanted affection. It took convincing, but Lola eventually agreed to marry Rudy. When Marvin found out…
The triangle shattered.
Marvin was heartbroken, both at the betrayal and at the loss of the woman he loved. He fled to the place he’d grown up and took refuge in the dusty remains of the Kasper Ridge Hotel. It was here that he decided to stay, to build. He bought up the land around the hotel, eventually securing ownership of more than fifty thousand acres of mountainous land around the small town of Kasper Ridge. And he began to build.
The resort rose slowly, the creeping pace hampered by frequent storms and by the melancholy sludge in Kasper’s heart. It was nearly complete when Kasper received a letter from Lola. Though he hadn’t explicitly told her where he was going, they’d talked about his childhood in the mountains, and she knew. The letter confided that she didn’t love Rudy and wouldn’t marryhim, restated her desire to be with Marvin, and ended with a plea to come back to her.
Marvin did. Immediately.
But Rudy’s fury over the situation resulted in Rudy doing his best to smear both their names in the movie business, getting Marvin blackballed. Lola and Marvin left, running back to Kasper Ridge. Together, they opened and operated the Kasper Ridge Resort from 1963 until 1990. During that time, the resort gained fame as an out-of-the-way retreat for celebrities and millionaires seeking to vacation away from the crowds that flocked to the mountain resorts farther north.
The bar of the resort quickly filled with photographs of Marvin side by side with the likes of Marilyn Monroe, The Beatles, Audrey Hepburn, Muhammad Ali, and even John F. Kennedy.
Marvin and Lola married and lived out their lives there happily, enjoying the kind of love Marvin had once made movies about.
Meanwhile, in Hollywood, Fusterburg exorcised his own demons by systematically removing every trace of Marvin Kasper’s existence or participation in any of the work that eventually built a fortune in royalties. By formalizing contracts in his own name only, he effectively stole millions of dollars from Kasper, who never pursued legal action.
But About That Treasure...
In 1990, Lola died, and Marvin mourned. He stopped taking care of the resort and it began to crumble around him in his grief. He still hosted family there, his young niece and nephew danced through the hills he’d explored as a child and played games in the empty hallways of the sagging resort.
And when Marvin died in 2019, he left those children the resort. Along with the mystery.
In 2021, Archie and Aubrey opened the refurbished Kasper Ridge Resort, having spent several years working to discover their uncle’s true intent in leaving them the map and key. But business preceded dusty and confusing treasure hunting duties, and though it was never far from their minds, they found no further clues after discovering a dusty pile of scripts and doing their best to unscramble the words of the rebus.
Their best guess? Their uncle hoped they would seek repayment of the massive royalties he’d lost out on after Rudy had removed his name from all the movies they’d written together. The pair went so far as to consult a lawyer.
But something didn’t feel right.
“Uncle Marvin wasn’t a guy who spent time crying over spilled milk,” Aubrey told me when I arrived to learn more about the hunt. “It didn’t feel like something he’d want us to do.”
Her brother agreed, and so they essentially abandoned the treasure hunt, relegating it to campfire discussion and old resort lore.
But there was a symbol on the map they hadn’t questioned. It was a cross, and upon thinking more about it, the pair recalled seeing a wedding photo of their aunt and uncle beneath an arched wooden sign. With another winter setting in, the Kaspers made a final attempt to reignite the hunt, and they went to find the sign.
Another clue appeared. On the ancient wood of the Kasper Ridge Worship sign, which now presides over a Lutheran summer camp, they found a carving and a set of numbers: 515. Of course the numbers were old and worn, and there was debate about whether they were actually 525 or 535, but once again, the hunt had led to more questions than answers. They searched rooms, they wracked brains. Finally, they realized thatthe enormous painting that had hung in the lobby all their lives was titled “Sea to Sea.”
The frame of the painting was easily twelve feet by ten feet, and it was no small feat lowering it carefully to the lobby floor, but it was an undertaking that paid off. Taped to the back were a final letter from Uncle Marvin, and of course—a movie.
The letter and the movie were intensely personal, clearly intended specifically for the descendants of Marvin Kasper. But the message they contained was universal: the treasure we can all hope to discover in life is love. Marvin emphasized that the connections we make with other human beings as we traverse the landscape of our lives are the most fulfilling riches we’ll ever discover. He spoke of love—of romantic love and also that of friendship. And he left a final hope for the Kasper Ridge Resort that started it all: That it would always be a place that brought those connections together, a place people would go to rediscover the magic in their lives and in the world. A place people would love.
EPILOGUE 2
Five Years Later…
GHOST
“I’m dirty, I’m tired, I’m completely disgusting,” Emily told me as she leaned her head against my shoulder. “But also?”
I looked down at her, a fleeting thought skittering through my mind as our eyes met. The longer I’d known her, the more beautiful she’d become. “Also what?”
“I’m so happy.” She lifted her hand, and together we admired the sparkling band I’d slid onto it the night before as lions roared in the dark nearby.
The truck we rode in jostled and jumped, and when I finally stepped away from it following the six-hour ride back to town from the game preserve where we’d spent the last three weeks, my body took a few minutes to adjust to solid ground.
