Run: 2026-09-23-01M36SM53X92D9J3K9SHVSFJP1

Bill spread the blueprints across the diner table and stabbed a greasy finger at the third floor of the suburban home. The paper was a rough photocopy he'd acquired from a very reluctant catering supplier named Gerald, who had since developed a lifelong fear of door-to-door salesmen. "So the party starts at three," Molly whispered, leaning forward as though the woman at the next table might be an informant. Bill nodded. "Thirty-seven kids, nine of them under five. Those are the unpredictable ones. Last time I worked a room full of toddlers, a little girl figured out my safecracking code in thirty seconds and then fell asleep on my shoes." "Let's aim for the seven-year-olds," Molly said, tapping a pencil against a photocopied layout of the house. "Better presents. More financial thinking. A seven-year-old in this neighbourhood is getting gift cards." "Nobody leaves gift cards under the tree," Bill muttered, scanning a handwritten list of what Gerald had called the "generous" households. He pointed at a circled address. The Hendersons. "These people always buy the good stuff. Last year at a fundraiser, they tipped a valet twenty bucks for parking a Civic." Molly's eyes went wide. "The Hendersons are in our zone? I thought that section belonged to Ricky's crew." "Ricky's crew got caught at a garden centre in May. It's ours now." Bill adjusted his fake mustache even though they were alone in the booth, a habit he had picked up from a movie he'd watched seven times. "We hit after the first round of pass-the-parcel. That's when the adults are distracted by the sugar crash." "What's your cover?" Molly asked, already unfolding her worst-fitting disguise bag. "I'm the new neighbour. I brought a casserole. Something passive." Bill paused. "Something brown." "Brown casserole. Bold choice." "I don't actually know how to make a casserole. I bought a frozen one and I'll transfer it into a proper dish at the last second. Basic misdirection." He pulled out a small notebook and began sketching escape routes. "Gifts are in the living room. We grab them and exit through the kitchen to the back garden, then over the fence into the Thompsons' yard. They're out of town." "According to who?" "Gerald." Molly raised an eyebrow. "Gerald from the catering company is also your real estate informant?" "Gerald has many talents and one grievance against civic order." Bill checked his watch. "We go in at three-twelve. I'll enter through the front door, you come through the side passage where the dog gate is broken." "The Hendersons don't own a dog." "Exactly. The gate is broken for no reason, which means it's been broken for years, which means nobody bothers fixing it. Beautiful, broken, forgotten. That's where you live." Molly tucked the blueprints into her jacket and stood up, sliding a twenty across the table for the coffee neither of them had finished. "If I hear the words 'guess what's under my shoe,' I'm aborting." Bill nodded solemnly. "God help whoever says it."