Run: 2026-09-23-01M36WH3TCFKXMHR5DZZ2MH0KN

Molly spread the floor plan across the hood of their stolen minivan, the edges curling in the wind like sleeping cats. She'd drawn it herself with colored pencils she'd also stolen, which made the map look less like a professional schematic and more like a watercolor painting of a house that had melted in the sun. She didn't care. Molly believed that creativity and criminality were cousins who only saw each other at funerals, and she was determined to bring them together for the holidays. Bill chewed on a toothpick and stared at the map. He was a large man with hands like dinner plates and the gentle, ruminative expression of a cow considering a fence. He'd been their getaway driver for two years and had never once gotten them away clean. The police had caught them seven times, and on three of those occasions the chase had lasted less than forty seconds because Bill had immediately driven into the same parking meter. "So," Molly said, tapping the map with a stubby finger. "The birthday party is at three o'clock. We go in at three-twenty, when all the kids are wired on cake and the parents are drunk on something." "That ain't the plan," Bill said slowly. "It's entirely the plan." "Your whole strategy is cake and gin?" Molly ignored this and pointed to the front door of the illustrated house. She'd drawn little balloons flanking the entrance and a tiny cartoon rabbit holding a sign that said WELCOME FRIENDS. "We come in through the kitchen. There's a service door by the garbage cans. Very discreet." Bill squinted. "Won't people see us?" "We're wearing party hats." "I don't follow." "We walk in wearing party hats and nobody will question a thing. We're just more guests. More friendly faces. More hats." Bill removed the toothpick and held it between his fingers like a tiny cigar. "You think people won't notice two strangers at a five-year-old's birthday party." "A stranger is only a friend you haven't robbed yet." "That's not how that saying goes." Molly waved her hand dismissively. She turned the map over, revealing the back of the paper where she had drawn a large pile of wrapped presents stacked into a pyramid that rivaled the Great Wall of China in ambition if not in cultural significance. "These are the targets. Gift bags, wrapped boxes, maybe a bike if we're lucky. Little Timmy's aunt always gives money in envelopes. Cash, Bill. Do you know how liquid that is?" "I know what cash is." "Do you? Do you really?" She leaned against the minivan. The warmth of the engine hummed through the metal. They had left it running for twenty minutes while arguing about parking, and now the dashboard was probably on fire. Molly did not check. "The window of opportunity is three minutes. That's how long it takes them to light the candles and sing." Bill popped the toothpick back into his mouth and nodded with the slow conviction of a man who had agreed to things far worse for far less. "Three minutes," he repeated. "Three minutes and we're ghosts."