Run: 2026-10-08-01M4DAN07TNC9M16HTQWJT2DE0

The van smelled of cold fries and bad decisions, which was exactly how Molly liked it. Parked three houses down from the Henderson birthday party, she and Bill watched through the fogged windshield as a bouncy castle shaped like a unicorn sagged on the front lawn, its rainbow mane flapping in the wind. Behind the living room window, forty-two wrapped presents waited in a towering pile beside a cake the size of a small ottoman. Bill raised a pair of binoculars with a crack across one lens. "I count six adults, two inflatable clowns, and a dog in a bow tie." "The dog is a distraction," Molly said, tapping a clipboard against the steering wheel. "Everything is a distraction if you're brave enough." "That's not a plan. That's a fortune cookie." She flipped the clipboard around. It held a hand-drawn map with arrows, a stick figure labeled BILL, and a sketch of a cake with a question mark on it. "Step one, you walk in dressed as the magician." "I'm not a magician." "You have a cape." Bill glanced down at the purple velvet cape draped over his shoulders, its clasp shaped like a crescent moon. He had bought it from a bin outside a costume shop, and it still smelled faintly of mothballs and regret. "It was a clearance sale," he said. "Step two, I sneak in through the garage while the parents are busy pretending to like the clowns." "What about the kids?" Molly paused, her pen hovering over the paper. "The kids have sticky hands and no respect for property." Bill slid lower in his seat. "Last time, one kid chased us down the street waving a juice box." "That was a learning experience." "He bit me, Molly." "Once. And you were holding his action figure hostage." The sun dipped behind the rooftops. Somewhere inside the house, a chorus of children began singing a slightly off-key version of "Happy Birthday," and the words drifted across the yard like a warning. Molly and Bill exchanged a long, serious look. "Okay," Bill said, pulling the cape tighter with great solemnity. "Let's go steal some birthday presents." Molly grinned and pulled a pair of plastic clown noses from the glovebox. "Put this on. Nobody suspects a clown." Bill stared at the red foam nose for a long moment. "Everyone suspects a clown." She shoved it onto his face anyway. The van door slid open with a squeak that sounded far too loud in the quiet street. Two very determined thieves crept across the lawn toward the unicorn castle, ducking behind a recycling bin and sneaking past a golden retriever in a bow tie. The dog watched them go, wagged his tail once, and went back to chewing a plastic dinosaur, as if he had known all along how this was going to end.