Run: 2026-04-24-01KQ0G1NFXSYG8F2Y6XZJ0ZRVM

Molly unrolled the blueprints across the sticky diner table, pinning the corners down with ketchup bottles and a half-eaten plate of hash browns. The floor plan of the Pemberton estate sprawled before them in meticulous pencil, every bouncy castle and piñata circled in red. Bill squinted at it, chewing his pen like a cowboy gnaws a toothpick, his enormous mustache twitching with concentration. The party, they had learned, belonged to one Tristan Pemberton, who was turning seven and whose parents believed deeply in excess. Gift estimates alone ran into five figures. Molly had already mapped the clown's patrol route, timed the magician's disappearing act down to the second, and identified the precise moment when the parents would be distracted by a llama named Geoffrey. Bill, for his part, had invented the disguises: two enormous, extremely convincing dinosaur costumes, complete with hidden zippers for rapid present-stuffing. He was particularly proud of the tails. "If that llama spits on me," Bill muttered, "I'm walking." Molly didn't look up. "Focus, Bill." Outside, rain tapped against the diner window, and somewhere across town, a seven-year-old was blissfully unaware that his birthday was about to become a federal matter.