Run: 2026-09-23-01M36W9QT68H0ADVSVKTNRPYQE

Molly spread the floor plan across the table, smoothing the creases with her thumbs until the whole plan lay flat, which of course meant it immediately rolled back up. Bill pressed a half-eaten doughnut into the center to hold it down. The plan was deceptively simple. Henderson's birthday party. The Hendersons were loaded. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, neighbors who showed up with the kind of presents that came in boxes the size of refrigerators. Everything would be piled in the corner of the living room, which had a sliding glass door that opened onto the back patio. "The window is forty-seven minutes," Molly said, tapping a green circle she'd drawn around the house. "What happens at forty-seven minutes?" "Magician." Bill blinked. "There's going to be a magician?" Molly pulled out a crumpled invitation she had liberated from a refrigerator door at the Henderson residence during a reconnaissance visit disguised as someone looking for a lost cat. "Six o'clock. Magician. All the kids sit on the carpet and watch. The parents watch the kids. Nobody is watching the pile of presents in the living room." "That's... actually brilliant." "The magician's name is Tricky Rick." She paused. "Which raises some professional concerns, but those are his problems." Bill studied the floor plan with the intensity of a man who had once stolen a bronze statue from a hotel lobby by pretending to be room service. "What about the parents near the sliding door?" "There won't be any. The living room sits between the kitchen and the backyard. During the magic show, the flow of adults migrates toward the food table. Beverages, specifically. There's always a moment when a group of them cluster around the cooler arguing about whether there are more beers in the garage." "And we go through the sliding door during the beer argument." "We go through the sliding door during the beer argument." Molly pulled a second sheet of paper from her jacket. It was a list, written in her tight, meticulous handwriting. Thirty-one presents, itemized with estimates of resale value. Stuffed animals brought almost nothing. Gaming consoles were gold. Lego sets were somewhere in between but took up enormous space in the bag. "Bag's not big enough," Bill observed. "Two bags. I'll handle the door. You handle the bags. We're out and through the Hendersons' side gate in eleven seconds." "Eleven?" "I timed the gravel path." Bill picked up the doughnut and took a contemplative bite. Crumbs landed on the magic show circle. "What if Tricky Rick does a wand trick and a kid turns around and sees two people in balaclavas carrying armfuls of action figures?" Molly looked at him the way a surgeon looks at a first-year student who has just sneezed into an open chest cavity. "What do you think the masks are for, Bill? Besides, the kids will be watching Tricky Rick pull scarves out of a hat. Children at birthday parties have the spatial awareness of golden retrievers." "That's offensive to golden retrievers." "Friday at six, then. Wear something you can sprint in."