Run: 2026-07-01-01KWE9TPBZY07HQVS48PWV90K4

The rain hammered against the window of the Rusty Nail Diner, but Molly Fenwick barely noticed. She was too busy studying the crumpled flyer spread across the table like it was a treasure map. In a way, it was. "Bill," she said, tapping the paper with a chipped fingernail, "this is it. Tommy Baxter's seventh birthday party. Saturday, two o'clock. Superhero theme." Bill Grzeslo, a mountain of a man who somehow always looked like he was apologizing for taking up space, squinted at the flyer. "We're robbing a seven-year-old's birthday party." "We're robbing the presents at a seven-year-old's birthday party. There's a difference." "Is there?" "Bill. Focus." Molly slid a napkin sketch toward him—a rough floor plan of a suburban backyard, complete with a bounce house drawn as a wobbly circle. "Word is the Baxters invited half the neighborhood. Thirty kids, thirty presents, minimum. We're talking PlayStations, bikes, probably a drone or two. This is a goldmine, Bill. A goldmine wrapped in Paw Patrol paper." Bill rubbed his stubbled jaw. "How do we even get in? I don't exactly blend in with a bunch of eight-year-olds." "Seven-year-olds." "Even worse. I'm six-foot-four. I'll stick out like a bear at a tea party." Molly grinned, the kind of grin that had gotten them both into—and occasionally out of—more trouble than either wanted to admit. "That's why you're not going as a guest. You're going as the entertainment." Bill blinked. "The what?" "The flyer says there's a magician booked. Some guy named Marvelous Marv. Sixty bucks an hour, terrible reviews online. I called and canceled him this morning. Told him the party got moved." "So I'm Marvelous Marv now." "Marvelous Bill, if you want to get technical. I ordered you a cape." Bill's eye twitched. "I don't do magic tricks, Molly." "You don't need to. Kids don't care if the tricks work. You just need thirty minutes of chaos—balloon animals, bad card tricks, whatever—while I slip into the house and load the presents into the van." "And where will you be? Dressed as what, exactly?" "Face-painter. Nobody questions a face-painter. I'll have a table set up right by the gift pile. Ten minutes in, I start 'accidentally' knocking gifts into a wagon for 'safekeeping.' Kids are climbing all over you by then, screaming about your rabbit." "I don't have a rabbit." "You will. I stole one from the pet shop this morning. Little guy's in a shoebox in my car." Bill sat back, arms crossed, looking simultaneously horrified and impressed. "You stole a rabbit for a heist involving stolen birthday presents from a child." "Poetic, isn't it?" "That's not the word I'd use." Molly folded the flyer with the satisfaction of a woman who'd already spent the loot in her head. "Two o'clock, Bill. Wear the cape. Try not to traumatize anyone." "No promises," Bill muttered, but he was already reaching for the flyer, already halfway in.