Run: 2026-04-24-01KPZV4K80ZXQKRAKDYZ7FFR6Y

The coffee shop smelled like burnt espresso and desperation, which Molly felt was appropriate given the circumstances. She slid the blueprints across the sticky table, narrowly avoiding a puddle of what might have been syrup or might have been tears from the woman two booths over arguing with her ex-husband on speakerphone. Bill squinted at the paper. Then he turned it ninety degrees. Then another ninety. "Molly, this is a placemat from Denny's." "Other side." He flipped it, revealing a hand-drawn map of a suburban backyard, complete with a bounce house labeled DANGER ZONE and an X marked where a piñata presumably dangled like a papier-mâché treasure chest. "Okay," Bill said. "Walk me through it." "Party starts at two. Eight-year-old's birthday. Theme is pirates, which is poetic, if you think about it." "I'm not thinking about it." "The presents pile up on the gift table here." She tapped the map. "By three o'clock, we're looking at forty, maybe fifty wrapped gifts. Minimum six LEGO sets. Possibly a Nintendo Switch, because the kid's grandma is loaded and also, I suspect, trying to buy affection." Bill leaned back. His chair creaked in a way that suggested it, too, had given up. "Molly. I want to say something, and I want you to hear me." "Oh, God." "We are grown adults." "Uh-huh." "We are planning to rob children." "We are planning to rob *one* child," Molly corrected, "of presents belonging to a surplus he cannot possibly appreciate. Have you seen how kids open gifts now? They tear through them like raccoons in a dumpster. It's grotesque." "You're describing me at Christmas." "And look how you turned out." Bill considered this, then nodded, because it was fair. He picked up his mug, discovered it was empty, and set it back down with the dignified regret of a man who had peaked in high school. "What's the cover?" he asked. "Clowns." "No." "Hear me out—" "No, Molly. Last time we did clowns I was picking greasepaint out of my sideburns for a month. I looked like a sad raccoon. A dumpster raccoon, if you will." "Fine. Magicians." "Better." "You do the rabbit thing, I work the gift table, and by the time anyone notices the presents are gone, we're halfway to the storage unit." "And the parents?" "Distracted. Parents at kids' parties are either drunk or dissociating. Usually both." Bill tapped his fingers on the table. The couple behind them had escalated to yelling about a timeshare in Boca. Somewhere, an espresso machine screamed like a kettle being murdered. "One condition," he said finally. "We leave the birthday boy's present. Just his. From his parents." Molly stared. "Bill. You sentimental marshmallow." "I have a code." "You have a sticker book." "I have *a code*, Molly." She sighed, folded the placemat, and tucked it into her jacket. "Fine. One present stays. The rest we liberate." "Liberate," Bill repeated. "I love when you talk heist to me."