Run: 2026-07-25-01KYCPXNJG4V6724EFAZ2CAS2J

The van smelled of stale birthday cake, which Molly considered a professional oversight. "You brought cake," she said. "I brought *reconnaissance*," Bill said, wiping crumbs off the blueprints. "Nobody suspects a man holding a sheet cake." "Nobody suspects a man holding a sheet cake because nobody looks at him twice. Which is different from nobody suspecting him." "That's the same thing." "It is emphatically not the same thing." Bill tapped the blueprint, which was actually a paper placemat from a diner, hand-annotated in crayon. "Focus. Thirty-two children, one bouncy castle, and a pile of presents the size of a small car. Rachel Pemberton is turning seven and her father owns four car dealerships." "Four?" "Four. The gifts, Molly. Tablets. Bikes. There's a rumor about a pony." "We are not stealing a pony." "I'm not saying we steal the pony. I'm saying the pony creates *chaos*, and chaos is a door." Molly rubbed her eyes. Eleven years in this business and she still got assigned the men who talked about ponies like they were philosophy. "Walk me through it," she said. "Slowly. Pretend I'm a jury." "Right. So. Two-fifteen, the magician arrives." "There's a magician?" "Amazing Reginald. Sixty-one years old, one van, no assistant since the divorce. He unloads through the side gate at two-fifteen because the front walk has gravel and his trunk has bad wheels." "How do you know that?" "I talked to him. At the diner." Bill gestured vaguely at the placemat. "Lovely man. Deeply sad. Anyway, at two-fifteen we're already inside, dressed as staff, holding a folding table—" "Why the table?" "Because nobody stops a person carrying furniture. It's the sheet cake principle, but heavier." Molly hated that this was correct. "Two-thirty," Bill continued, "Reginald starts his act in the backyard. Every child in a forty-foot radius goes into a trance. Two-forty, the doves come out." "Doves." "Six. He can only reliably control four." "So two doves loose in a suburban backyard." "Two doves, thirty-two children, one bouncy castle, and forty adults who have all had exactly one and a half glasses of white wine." Bill leaned back, radiant. "That's not chaos, Molly. That's a *symphony*." She stared at the placemat. A crayon arrow pointed from a scribbled house to a scribbled van, labeled *LOOT*. "And the presents are where?" "Sunroom. Off the kitchen. Single door, no lock, direct line to the driveway. We load them into the table." "The table." "It's a table with a skirt. You put things under the skirt. It's the greatest invention in the history of theft and nobody talks about it." "Bill." Molly turned to face him. "These are children's presents." "They're a car dealer's tax write-off wearing a bow." "That's not an answer, that's a bumper sticker." "Rachel Pemberton has a walk-in closet, Molly. She's seven. She has a walk-in closet with a chandelier in it. She will not remember this party. She will not remember the pony. In eleven years she'll be at a boarding school complaining that her father never showed up to anything, and I promise you the tablets won't come up." Molly said nothing for a while. "Two-fifteen," she said finally. "Two-fifteen." "If there's a pony, we leave the pony." "Obviously." Bill picked up the cake. "Unless it follows us."