Run: 2026-04-24-01KPZV637EBS4CZT17709X0WE6

Molly spread the blueprint across the sticky diner table, smoothing it past a syrup stain shaped vaguely like Australia. Bill leaned in, chewing a pen cap with the intensity of a man defusing a bomb. "Okay," Molly said. "The target is one Tyler Brennan. Turning seven on Saturday. His mother rented out the entire Jump-N-Bounce Fun Palace." "Inflatables," Bill muttered. "My old nemesis." "Focus. Guest list is thirty-two kids, twelve parents, two clowns, and a guy in a dinosaur costume who I think is just the dad's unemployed cousin." "Security?" "One teenage birthday hostess named Brittany. She's sixteen, makes nine bucks an hour, and according to her TikTok, she hates her job with the fire of a thousand suns." "She's flippable," Bill said, nodding. "We offer her twenty bucks and a ride home, she'll hand us the goodie bags herself." "We're not corrupting a minor, Bill." "Fine. Morally ambiguous plan B. What about the presents?" Molly tapped a rectangle on the blueprint. "Gift table, back corner, near the ball pit. Everything gets piled there when guests arrive. Unsupervised for roughly ninety minutes during pizza and cake." "Ninety minutes is a lifetime in thievery." "It's a lifetime in a ball pit too. I once lost a shoe in one for six years." Bill looked up. "Metaphorically?" "Literally. Anyway. We arrive at two fifteen, dressed as—" She slid a photograph across the table. Bill stared at it. "No." "Yes." "Molly, I am not dressing as a clown." "You're dressing as a clown." "I have dignity." "You stole a kayak last month using only a snorkel and a library card. You do not have dignity." Bill sighed the sigh of a man who had made peace with many things. "Fine. What are you going to be?" "Face painter. I've got the kit, I've got the smock, and I can do a passable butterfly." "And the getaway?" "Minivan. Rented it under the name Deborah Hinkle." "Who's Deborah Hinkle?" "Nobody. That's the beauty of it." Bill scratched his jaw. "What about the parents? Thirty-two kids means a lot of phones recording. One viral video and we're on a morning show in handcuffs." "Which is why," Molly said, producing a small plastic device from her purse, "we jam the Wi-Fi. No uploads, no livestreams, no evidence. By the time anyone realizes the presents are gone, we're halfway to Toledo." "Why Toledo?" "I have a guy in Toledo." "You have a guy everywhere, Molly." "That's called a network, Bill. That's called professionalism." He folded the blueprint carefully. "One question. Ethically speaking—" "Don't." "—are we really the kind of people who steal from a seven-year-old?" Molly sipped her coffee. "Tyler Brennan's dad is a hedge fund manager who foreclosed on my aunt's bakery. Tyler is getting an iPad, a drone, and a check for two grand from Grandpa." Bill considered this. "Robin Hood rules?" "Robin Hood rules." "I'll get the clown shoes."