Run: 2026-02-24-01KJ8W0DGVP0JZT3YCYCW66031

Molly spread the crayon-drawn floor plan across the hood of their rusted van with the reverence a general might give a battle map. The document had been liberated from a trash can outside Sunshine Kidz Party Planners, and it smelled faintly of juice boxes and regret. Bill stood beside her eating chips and getting crumbs on what she considered critical intelligence. "Could you not," she said. "It's a birthday party, Molly. For a seven-year-old." "It's a target, Bill. Targets don't care how old the guests are." He squinted at the map. Someone had drawn a smiling sun in the corner and written HAPPY BDAY TYLER in green crayon. "The bouncy castle is going to be a problem," Molly said, tapping the inflatable fortress that dominated the diagram. "Squeaks with every step. We go through it and every parent within four blocks hears us." "So we go around it." "The fence runs right up to the edge. There is no around it." Bill chewed thoughtfully and stared at the sky in the particular way he always did when he was either having an idea or experiencing mild indigestion. Molly had learned over their three-year partnership to treat both possibilities with equal skepticism and to remain at least three feet away just in case. "What about the clown?" he asked. "What about the clown, Bill." "We take his costume. Nobody questions a clown carrying presents." "We are not stealing a clown costume." "I'm just saying it adds legitimacy." "Nothing about us is legitimate. That's the whole point." The afternoon sun beat down on the dollar store parking lot they had chosen for operational planning, largely because it was free and nobody asked questions. A woman pushing a cart of paper towels gave them a long look, and Molly slid the map behind her back with the smooth instinct of someone who had spent most of her adult life looking suspicious in parking lots. "What time does the cake come out?" Bill asked, brushing chip dust from his jacket. "Two-fifteen. Tyler's mom posted the full itinerary online." "She posted it online?" "Pin the tail on the donkey at one-thirty, presents at two, cake at two-fifteen." "People are incredible," Bill said, and he sounded genuinely moved. The real problem, Molly knew, wasn't the bouncy castle or the clown or the six-foot inflatable giraffe also rendered on the map with disturbing enthusiasm. The real problem was that she genuinely liked children's parties. The streamers. The cake. The particular chaos of twenty small people running in directions that defied geometry. She had grown up without a single birthday party, not one, and somewhere beneath the tactical exterior lived a woman who fully understood the moral weight of what she was about to do. She rolled up the map anyway. "We go in at two-fifteen," she said. "Right when they cut the cake." Bill nodded and finished his chips.