Run: 2026-07-01-01KWE9YNBPA02C3WT67K2XGTVR

The rain hammered against the window of the van, and Molly checked her watch for the fifth time in as many minutes. Bill sat beside her, tapping a pen against a clipboard covered in scribbled diagrams of a suburban backyard. "Okay, so walk me through it again," Molly said, not looking up from the party invitation she'd stolen off a mailbox three days ago. "Timmy Wallace, turning seven," Bill said. "Party starts at two. Bounce house arrives at one-thirty. Presents get piled on the folding table by the garage door around one-forty-five." "And the parents?" "Distracted. There's a clown. Face painting. Some idiot with a balloon animal franchise." Molly finally looked up. "We're robbing a seven-year-old's birthday party." "We're not robbing him. We're robbing his guests. Twenty kids, twenty presents, all wrapped in shiny paper just begging to be liberated." "You make it sound noble." "I make it sound profitable. You seen what people spend on gifts these days? Legos alone could fund our next three jobs." Molly sighed and pulled her hoodie up. "This is a new low, Bill." "Every low is a new high if the take's good enough." "That's not even a real saying." "It will be, once we're rich." She rolled her eyes but couldn't hide the small smile tugging at her mouth. Bill always had a way of making terrible ideas sound almost reasonable, which was exactly why they'd stayed partners this long—that, and the fact that neither of them trusted anyone else enough to split the money with. "So what's our cover?" she asked. "Face painters. I already boosted two smocks and a case of brushes from that costume shop downtown." "You want me to paint children's faces?" "You want the presents or not?" She groaned, but reached into the back seat and grabbed the smock anyway, pulling it over her head like a woman resigning herself to her fate. "If I end up with glitter on me for a week, I'm blaming you." "Duly noted." "And if some kid asks me to paint a unicorn, I'm walking." "You can do a unicorn." "I can do a triangle with a horn. That's the extent of my artistic talent." "Good enough for seven-year-olds." They sat in silence for a moment, watching a woman across the street unload trays of cupcakes from her car, oblivious to the storm about to descend on her son's birthday party. "You really think this is going to work?" Molly asked. Bill grinned, tucking the clipboard under his arm. "Molly, we've robbed banks. We've robbed casinos. We robbed a wedding once, remember?" "I remember the groom crying." "Exactly. If we can survive a crying groom, we can survive a bounce house and a clown." She exhaled, long and slow, then reached for the door handle. "Fine. But if this goes sideways, I'm blaming the clown." "Deal," Bill said, already stepping out into the rain, smile widening. "Let's go steal some birthday presents."