Run: 2026-07-25-01KYCQPRDS9ZP8ADWJM8QC830E

Molly spread the blueprint across the hood of the van, smoothing it with her palm. "That's a napkin," Bill said. "It's a schematic." "It's a napkin from Gino's, Molly. There's a marinara stain where the back door should be." "That's the bouncy castle. Now focus." She tapped the napkin. "Fourteen presents. Maybe sixteen if the Delgado twins overachieve, which they will, because Marla Delgado has something to prove ever since the christening incident." "And the target?" "Sophie Pemberton. Turning seven. Party starts at two, cake at three, presents opened at four." "So we go in at three-fifty." "We go in at three-fifteen, during cake, when the parents are filming and the kids are sugar-blind." Molly folded the napkin and tucked it into her jacket. "You'll be the entertainment." Bill stopped chewing his gum. "Define entertainment." "Clown." "No." "Bill." "I said no. We agreed after Reno. No costumes with pockets I can't reach." "You'll have a whole trunk. Clowns get trunks. Nobody questions a clown with a trunk, it's practically expected." She opened the van's back doors, revealing a rack of polyester horrors. "I got you the yellow one. It's slimming." "It has a ruffle." "All the good ones have a ruffle." Bill held up the costume against himself, grimly. "And what are you doing while I'm honking a bicycle horn for a room full of feral seven-year-olds?" "Aunt Deborah." "Whose aunt?" "Nobody's. That's the beauty of Aunt Deborah. Every family has one and nobody admits they can't place her. I'll bring a casserole and complain about my hip until they beg me to sit somewhere out of the way." She mimed a limp, wincing theatrically. "Preferably near the gift table." "You've thought about this a disturbing amount." "I've been in the game nineteen years, Bill. I've never once been caught by a woman named Deborah and neither has anybody else." She pulled a canvas tote from the van. "Presents go in here, tote goes in your trunk, trunk goes out the side gate at three-forty." "What about the dog?" Molly paused. "What dog?" "The Pembertons have a dog. Big one. Brown." "How do you know that?" "Because I did surveillance, Molly, unlike some people who did their surveillance on a napkin." Bill dug in his pocket and produced a photograph. "That's Bartholomew. Ninety pounds. Steals sandwiches." "Then he's a colleague." She took the photo, studying it. "Fine. Bring hot dogs." "How many?" "How many do you think?" "I don't know how many hot dogs a ninety-pound dog needs, I'm a thief, not a—" "Bring the whole pack." Bill exhaled and pulled the clown wig over his head, where it sat like a startled poodle. "And if a kid asks me to make a balloon animal?" "Make a balloon animal." "I can't make a balloon animal." "Then make a balloon snake and tell them it's a very sad giraffe." "That's cruel." "That's improvisation." Molly slammed the doors and checked her watch. "It's one-fifty. Get in the van, Bartholomew's counting on us." "Bartholomew's the dog." "I know what I said."