Run: 2026-10-13-01M4TAS2B999NZYFC6CX7H0BTT

Molly spread the blueprint across the steering wheel of the getaway hatchback. It was drawn in crayon, because she had stolen the crayons from her nephew, which Bill felt was foreshadowing. Phase one was labeled SNEAKY TIME. Phase two was a drawing of a cake. Phase three just said PROFIT, with an arrow pointing at nothing. "Run it by me again," Bill said. "It's a kid's party, Bill, not Fort Knox." "Fort Knox doesn't have a bouncy castle." "Which is why we enter through the bouncy castle." Molly tapped the diagram, where a stick figure labeled BILL appeared to be entering the party through a deflated lung. The house belonged to the Hendersons, whose son Tyler was turning seven and, according to Molly's surveillance, meaning Tyler's mom's Facebook, would be receiving "sooo many presents lol." "Forty presents, minimum. Bikes, consoles, a robot dog." "I don't feel great about robbing a seven-year-old." "It's liberation. Kids that age play with the box anyway." Bill stared at the house. A balloon arch sagged over the fence, and somewhere inside a clown was earning more per hour than Bill ever had legally. "What's my cover again?" "Magician's assistant." "There's no magician." "There is now. I booked us for cake." Molly produced a cape from the backseat along with a top hat that smelled faintly of a previous crime. Her plan, explained with the confidence of a woman who had once shoplifted a canoe, involved a disappearing act, timed to musical chairs, during which Bill, dressed as a clown despite his documented balloon phobia, would wheel the present table out through the garage disguised as a very rectangular rabbit. "Why can't I be the magician?" "Because I have the cape." "Leadership has privileges." Bill rubbed his face. He had once teared up at a stranger's gender reveal, and that was before the fire. But Molly had the look, the one from the aquarium job, the one that meant this was happening regardless of what the clown union had to say about it. "What about the piñata?" Kids swarmed those things like piranhas, and Bill's many talents did not include children. "Phase three. I release the doves." "You don't have doves." "I have pigeons and spray paint." "It's a makeover, Bill. They love it." At that moment, the Hendersons' front door opened and a wave of shrieking seven-year-olds poured into the yard, high on sugar, wielding party blowers like tiny deafening trumpets of war. Bill's resolve, never sturdy, crumbled entirely. "Molly. They're just kids." "Exactly. Terrible witnesses. Can't reach the pedals of a cop car." Molly sighed, handing him the clown wig. "Get in the trunk. If the pony looks at you funny, do not engage. That pony has seen things." Bill took the wig. He always took the wig. Behind him, a balloon popped, and he screamed like a man who knew, deep down, that forty presents were not worth this, but was going to try anyway, because Molly had the cape, and the cape had pockets.