Run: 2026-02-24-01KJ8W59YJZW4N0P7RHVQ99FWE

Molly spread the blueprint across the hood of their dented minivan with the reverence most people reserved for ancient treasure maps. It had been sketched in crayon on the back of a Denny's placemat, but it depicted the Peterson household in alarming detail, right down to the inflatable bounce house that dominated the backyard like a castle made of nylon and poor decisions. Bill squinted at it sideways. He had the look of a man who had made a long series of bad choices and was gearing up to make another one. He'd already pulled on his balaclava despite the fact that it was two in the afternoon and they were parked in a gas station lot in broad daylight. "Take that off. We don't go in for another three hours." Molly snatched a cheese puff from the bag wedged between them and used it to tap the crayon outline of the backyard. She walked him through the timeline with the calm precision of a field general. The party began at four. Gift drop-off would happen in a frantic fifteen-minute window as parents deposited their children and expensive presents on the front hall table, then fled. Nobody lingered at a seven-year-old's birthday party voluntarily. That, she explained with visible satisfaction, was the opening. Bill peeled off the balaclava. It snagged on his ears, and his hair sprang up in wild tufts of static. He studied the placemat, tracing a thick finger along the crayon lines toward the garage. "We go in through the back gate?" "Exactly. The bounce house gives us a blind spot along the entire east wall. Kids too sugared up to notice a thing, one dead-eyed parent on watch duty staring into the abyss. We slip through the sliding glass door, grab the presents, and load the van." She made it sound elegant, which was precisely how Bill knew it would all go sideways. Their last job had involved stealing a wedding cake from a country club reception and had ended with Bill waist-deep in a koi pond while Molly drove away without him. Trust, in their partnership, had always been more of a suggestion than a binding principle. "What about the dog, though? The Petersons definitely have a dog." He said this with the gravity of a man identifying a final and fatal flaw. "It's a golden retriever, Bill. That breed hasn't been suspicious of anything in its entire evolutionary history." Bill accepted this with a slow nod. He fished out another cheese puff and chewed it thoughtfully, watching the quiet suburban street ahead of them like a soldier surveying foreign and hostile terrain. "Are the presents even going to be worth all this trouble?" "This is Highland Park. These people spend more on a child's birthday gift than we spend on rent. Last year someone gave a six-year-old a tablet worth more than your car." "Everything's worth more than my car," Bill muttered. Molly folded the placemat with surgical precision and slid it into her jacket. The afternoon sun caught the minivan's chipped paint and, for one brief and deeply misleading moment, made them both look almost heroic. "Three hours. Eat your cheese puffs and stay calm." Bill pulled the balaclava back on out of pure spite.