Run: 2026-09-23-01M36TN6ADXNC6G67C35B76VWY

The living room of their safe house was plastered in glow-in-the-dark star stickers that the previous tenant had apparently never bothered to remove. Molly stood in front of a corkboard covered in photographs of a seven-year-old's birthday party venue — the back garden of a suburban home on Elm Lane, complete with a bouncy castle and what appeared to be an unlicensed cotton candy machine. She tapped a mugshot of a seven-year-old boy named Tyler, pinned right at the center. "So the presents," Molly said, gesturing at the board. "They get piled on a table near the fence. Unsupervised. Un-guarded. Completely naked to theft." Bill sat on the couch peeling an orange. "Naked to theft. I like that." "Forty-two kids confirmed on the RSVP. That's forty-two presents minimum. We're talking LEGO sets. Video games. Probably one of those giant stuffed bears." "That bear's gonna be a nightmare to carry." "We don't take the bear. The bear is a decoy. If someone tries to stop us, we throw the bear at them." Bill squinted at her. "You want to throw a stuffed bear at a seven-year-old." "I want to throw a stuffed bear at anyone who gets in our way. The bear is non-discriminatory." He set down the orange peel and leaned forward. "What's the security like?" "There's a clown named Geoffrey doing balloon animals by the patio. Potentially armed. Definitely deranged." "Clowns are a whole different threat level, Molly." "Which is why we go during the piñata window. Thirty seconds of chaos. Every kid swinging blindfolded at a paper donkey. Nobody's watching anything else." Bill pulled out a napkin and started sketching a crude map of the garden. "So we come over the back fence from Henderson's yard while the piñata's swinging. You grab the presents into sacks, I load the van, and we're gone before Tyler even gets the candy out of the donkey." "Precisely. Simple. Elegant. Victimless." "They're children. The victims are children." "Children are resilient," Molly said. "Besides, Tyler got a pony for his fourth birthday. A literal pony. The kid's doing fine." "Where are we going to fence forty-two children's toys?" "Reggie at the flea market will take anything. Last week he moved two hundred pool noodles and a coffin." Bill raised an eyebrow. "Why did Reggie have a coffin?" "He didn't ask questions about mine and I don't ask questions about his." She pulled on her coat and grabbed the bag of sacks by the door. "Now come on. Party starts at two and I want to be in Henderson's hydrangeas by one-thirty."