Molly spread the hand-drawn map across the hood of the minivan, smoothing out the crayon marks with her palm. The blueprint had cost her three juice boxes and a pack of fruit snacks, courtesy of a very entrepreneurial six-year-old named Timmy who lived next door to the target. "Alright, here's what we're looking at," she said, tapping the paper. "The Hendersons' backyard. Party starts at two. We've got a bouncy castle here, face painting station here, and the present table is right next to the sliding glass door." Bill leaned over the map and squinted. "Is that a dragon or a dog?" "That's Mrs. Henderson. Timmy isn't exactly Rembrandt. Focus, Bill." "I'm focused. I'm just saying, if the woman actually looks like that, we've got bigger problems than security." Molly pulled a pair of binoculars from her fanny pack and handed them to him. "I've been doing surveillance for three days. The gift haul is going to be massive. We're talking thirty kids, all from the wealthy part of the subdivision. These parents don't show up with anything less than fifty bucks a pop." Bill did the math on his fingers, his eyes widening as the number climbed. "That's fifteen hundred dollars in presents." "Retail value, easy. We fence them at forty cents on the dollar, and we're still walking away with a nice payday." "And you're sure about the getaway route?" "Positive. We go through the side gate, cut across the Petersons' yard, and the van will be parked on Maple Street. Thirty seconds, tops." Bill scratched his chin, looking genuinely troubled for the first time. The afternoon sun caught his receding hairline and made it gleam like a warning beacon. He shifted his weight from one worn sneaker to the other. "What about the kids, Molly? I mean, these are children. They're going to cry." "They're eight-year-olds, Bill. They have the emotional memory of goldfish. By Monday they won't even remember what they were upset about." "I don't know. My therapist says I need to stop avoiding guilt." "Your therapist also told you to start journaling, and you used that notebook to plan the pharmacy job." He couldn't argue with that. She watched him wrestle with what remained of his conscience, a quick and uneventful match. "Fine. But I'm not wearing the clown costume again." "You have to wear the clown costume. That's the whole plan. You distract them with balloon animals while I load the presents into garbage bags." "Last time I wore that thing, a kid bit me." "You made him a snake. He wanted a giraffe. That's on you." Bill sighed, the deep sigh of a man who had made peace with a life of increasingly absurd crime. He folded the map carefully, respecting Timmy's artistry despite everything. "What time do we move?" Molly checked her watch and smiled the kind of smile that had launched a thousand bad decisions. "Right after cake. Nobody leaves during cake."