Run: 2026-02-18-01KHQ93DNMM22YRN4CAXXVH97Q

The rain hammered against the windshield of Bill's ancient Ford Escort, which smelled aggressively of old cheese and broken dreams. Molly spread the hand-drawn map across the dashboard, smoothing it with her palm while Bill squinted at the house through a pair of binoculars he'd borrowed from a birdwatcher and never returned. The target was a semi-detached on Primrose Avenue, decorated with exactly the kind of cheerful enthusiasm that made career criminals feel genuinely terrible about themselves. Pink and yellow balloons bobbed furiously in the wind, tied to the gate in cheerful little clusters. A banner above the front door announced in glittery letters that Emily was turning seven, and wasn't that simply wonderful for everyone involved. "She's getting a bouncy castle," Bill said. Molly looked up from the map. "How do you know that?" "Van arrived an hour ago. Two blokes with a rolled-up castle. Not subtle." Molly chewed the end of her pen and made a note. A bouncy castle meant chaos, and chaos meant opportunity. Children screaming and bouncing and smearing birthday cake across every available surface left very little room for adult supervision. Adult supervision being, in their line of work, the primary obstacle between themselves and success. The plan was straightforward, as their plans always appeared to be before the moment they were required to actually execute them. Molly would pose as a party entertainer, having purchased an extremely unconvincing clown wig from a closing-down joke shop three towns over. Bill would enter through the back garden under the cover of whatever noise thirty sugar-deranged children could generate, locate the present table, and extract the goods into a duffel bag before anyone noticed he wasn't a parent. "What if someone talks to me?" Bill asked. "Look tired and hold a paper cup of something warm. Nobody questions a tired parent holding tea." Bill considered this. It was, he admitted privately, the most intelligent thing Molly had said all week, which set a fairly low bar given that she had recently microwaved a fork. The presents table, visible in the brief moments the front door swung open to admit small, screaming guests, appeared magnificently loaded. Stacked with the particular architectural ambition that only occurs when multiple sets of grandparents have been competitive about it. There were boxes wrapped in shiny paper, gift bags overflowing with tissue, and what appeared to be a bicycle, which was going to create significant logistical complications. "We're not taking the bicycle," Molly said firmly, following his gaze. "Obviously." "I mean it, Bill." "I heard you the first time." A cluster of small children in party dresses arrived at the gate, shrieking about something with the boundless intensity that only the very young and the very caffeinated can sustain. Their exhausted parents shuffled behind them, clutching wrapped presents and wearing the hollow expressions of people who had not slept properly since approximately the previous decade. Bill lowered the binoculars. "Right," he said. "Showtime."