Her plan made sense. After explaining it to me, I realized burning the safe house would be the only way we could cover up our tracks and take the valuables. Apparently, there were a lot, which was why Lizzy felt the need to do something like this. Either that, or she was still pissed off at him. It turns out her ex was a chain smoker; he'd even gotten Lizzy into the habit after she spent months of him smoking two packs a day around her. It was this little detail about him that might save our lives.
"Here's the plan," she said. We were still in our bedroom hungrily staring down the weapons that would soon be ours. "Say there's a gas leak in his home, from faulty piping or whatever. He doesn't use this house often so it could go unnoticed, right?" She asked me although I didn't know whether or how to answer. "He's a huge smoker, like he used to smoke two packs a day. What if he fell asleep with a cigarette, one night? Something that would usually be a small hiccup would turn into a life-or-death house fire when it catches up with that gas leak."
I stared at her for a long time, an easy solution to an impossible problem. I knew Lizzy was a smart thinker, but the way she almost instantly came up with a plausible explanation to all this was overwhelming. I've definitely underestimated her capability. "This will work?" I asked her.
She nodded extensively and smiled. "One hundred percent."
Now, it's a little past one o-clock and all the weapons from underneath the mattress were packed into three duffel bags and sat on top of our luggage. Both of us tear the room apart, looking for other valuables the man might have left behind. I pull out drawers and look in and underneath them as she turns over every book on his shelf. I don't find much but half an ounce of some white powdery drug that Lizzy tells me is heroin. She tells me to put it in with the weapons and dumps the man's gold chains in with them as well. We do this to every room, turning everything over inside and out, but making sure to put it back so we don't leave suspicion. In total, we find thirty-two ounces of cocaine, sixteen ounces of marijuana, fifty-five LSD tablets and sixteen ounces of heroin. Half of which were actually hidden inside pillows and couch cushions, the perfect hiding spots.
So many drugs were found in his home that we began stuffing them into our pants, unable to find room in the duffel bags or our suitcases. I begin to think this is why Lizzy wanted to burn the house down, so the cartel wouldn't get to take their drugs back. As I sit on the in the living room, waiting for her to load the car with the bags, I think we're nearly finished. I'm excited to get out of Texas and see what the rest of America has in store. Hopefully we'll go north, like Lizzy was talking about. I've always wanted to see New York and the thought of strolling Broadway with her gave me a giddy feeling. However, Lizzy isn't in the same hurry to leave as I am.
She rushes back inside nearly tripping over her ex boyfriend's lifeless body holding a hammer. She hands the heavy object to me and I look down at it confusedly. "Where did you get this?" I ask her.
"The garage."
"What is it for?"
"The rest of our shit."
Her hand reaches for mine and she walks me toward the basement door. It had just occurred to me that I haven't been to the basement the entire time I've spent here. The basement is finished with a nice lounging area and a pool table. If I knew there was another area to relax, I would have spent some time here, but it doesn't really matter. I stand in the middle of the basement as Lizzy knocks and listens to the walls, until coming to a part of it that stands out to her. I watch as her hand rests on it and she leans in, and knocks on it again.
