Run: 2026-07-01-01KWE91D2AA2SSG4FRFC5DF8YV

The back room of the Rusty Spoon smelled like spilled beer and bad decisions, which suited Molly just fine. She spread the blueprints across the table—technically a birthday party invitation with directions on the back, but Bill didn't need to know that. "So let me get this straight," Bill said, squinting at the paper. "Our target is a seven-year-old named Tyler." "Our target," Molly corrected, "is forty-three wrapped presents currently sitting under a Paw Patrol banner in a suburban backyard." "You had me at Paw Patrol, I was just checking the difficulty level." "Difficulty level is a birthday clown named Ziggy who's actually a moonlighting bouncer, and Tyler's grandmother, who I'm told fought in actual Vietnam." "The grandmother fought in Vietnam." "That's the rumor." Bill leaned back in his chair. "Molly. We are planning to rob children." "We are planning to relocate presents from children who have too many to children who have none. It's basically Robin Hood." "Robin Hood didn't steal from seven-year-olds." "Robin Hood stole from rich people. Tyler's dad is a hedge fund manager. Do the math." Bill considered this. "What's our angle?" "Simple. You dress as a delivery guy. Big box, says 'more presents from Grandma Sylvia,' you walk right through the side gate while everyone's distracted by the piñata." "There's a piñata?" "There's always a piñata, Bill, focus." "And what are you doing while I'm playing UPS?" Molly smiled, the kind of smile that had gotten them both arrested twice and out of jail once. "I'm the entertainment. Face painting. Twenty bucks says nobody questions a woman with a briefcase full of brushes and glitter." "You don't know how to face paint." "I know how to draw a butterfly. That's eighty percent of face painting." "And the other twenty percent?" "Confidence, Bill. Same as everything else in life." Bill rubbed his temples like he could physically massage away the terrible idea forming between them. "What about the actual gifts? We can't just carry forty-three boxes out the side gate without someone noticing their kid's haul is walking away." "That's where the second box comes in. We swap it. Empty box goes under the banner, real box goes in your truck. By the time anyone counts presents, we're three exits down the highway." "Kids count presents immediately, Molly. It's like their only skill." "Which is why we time it for cake. No child in the history of children has ever cared about presents mid-cake. It's a scientific law." Bill stared at the invitation, at the cartoon dog waving from the corner, at the little "RSVP by Friday!" scrawled in a mother's optimistic handwriting. "This is the dumbest plan you've ever had." Molly grinned, already folding the invitation into her jacket pocket. "Which is exactly why it's going to work."