“And there’s Rhett,” Joey said. “How’s Rhett?”

“What?” Agnes said, thrown off stride. She stopped stirring her berries, which began to bubble, and looked down at her dog, draped over her feet like a moth-eaten brown overcoat, slobbering on the floor as he slept. “Rhett’s fine. Why? What have you heard?”

“He’s a fine healthy-lookin’ dog,” Joey said hastily. “He looked real good in his picture in the paper today.” He paused, his voice straining to be casual. “How come old Rhett was wearing that stupid collar in that picture?”

“Collar?” Agnes frowned at the phone. “It was just some junk jewelry-”

The oven timer buzzed, and she said, “Hold on,” put down the phone, and took the now madly bubbling berries off the heat. Rhett picked up his head and bayed, and she turned to see what he was upset about.

A guy with a gun stood in the doorway, the bottom half of his face covered with a red bandanna.

“I come for your dog,” he said, pointing the gun at Rhett, and Agnes said, “No!” and slung the raspberry pan at the guy, the hot syrup arcing out in front of it like napalm and catching him full in the face.

He screamed as the scalding fruit hit him and then dropped his gun to rip the bandanna away as Agnes stumbled to scoop up the pan and Rhett barreled into him, knocking him down so that he hit the back of his head on the marble counter by the wall and knocked off every cupcake she had cooling there before he collapsed into the doorway.

“Goddamnit” Agnes said breathlessly, standing over him with her pan, her heart pounding.

The guy didn’t move, and Rhett began to hoover up cupcakes at the speed of light.

“Agnes?” Joey shouted from the phone on the counter. “What the fuck, Agnes?”