Run: 2026-09-02-01M1GTMWDQEPS7NYFP599YC70T

Molly crouched behind the hydrangeas, binoculars pressed to her face despite the target being plainly visible to anyone with functioning eyeballs. Three houses down, the Henderson backyard was a festival of primary colors: a bouncy castle sagging in the heat, a unicorn piñata strung from the oak, and a folding table heaped with presents in wrapping paper so bright it could be seen from space, or at least from a van with tinted windows. Bill lay beside her in the grass, wearing a Hawaiian shirt he insisted qualified as civilian camouflage. He was eating trail mix from home, which Molly considered unprofessional on at least four levels. "The perimeter's soft," Molly said, scanning. "No cameras. No dog. One clown." "Clowns are variables," Bill said through a mouthful of almonds. "You don't plan around a clown. You pray." "It's a birthday clown, Bill. His only weapon is a balloon poodle." "I've been hit by a balloon poodle. Cleveland. 2019. My ear never recovered." Molly lowered the binoculars and looked at him the way she often did — like a woman recalculating her retirement in real time. The present table gleamed in the afternoon sun like a shrine to untraceable resale value. "Our window is three-fifteen, when the cake comes out. Every parent in that yard will point a phone at one candle. Sixty seconds of blindness. We go in low, empty the table, and we're gone before the kid finishes wishing." "Which, statistically, is a wish for a puppy. Just saying." The plan was, on paper, flawless. It was drafted on a Denny's napkin, a step up from their previous blueprint, which lived on the back of a speeding ticket. They were professionals. They had stolen a Monet from a gallery in Nice, a Fabergé egg from a Monaco sheikh, and, through a series of misunderstandings, a zoo. A children's party in the suburbs should have been beneath them. That was exactly why Molly loved it. "No fences," she explained, watching the clown twist a balloon into something unlawful. "No buyers, no auction houses, no man named Sergei asking about your mother's health. LEGOs are untraceable. They're the new bearer bonds. Every kid in this county wants the same three sets." Bill considered this, chewing. "So we're fencing LEGOs." "We're redistributing inventory." Beyond the fence, a child shrieked with the pure joy of a sugar rush, and Molly checked her watch. Three-fourteen. The lawn was about to become an ocean of distracted adults filming vertically. She pulled a black beanie on despite the ninety-degree heat, because a heist had standards. "Sixty seconds," she whispered. "Presents only." "Obviously," said Bill, whose eyes had drifted to the unicorn piñata like a compass finding north. "Presents only." "Bill." "Thirty-five seconds is plenty to grab a piñata." "Bill, I swear—" But the singing had started — off-key, deafening, twenty children strong — and the window was open. Molly went over the fence like a shadow. Bill followed like a man who had just, quietly, revised the mission parameters, and whose pockets were already unzipped.