“Where is that, I wonder?” Michael asked, after Debbie Anne had rattled off the address. “Someone really should explain to Chief Featherstone that a lot of people in town barely know their own street addresses, and at least half of his firefighters don’t own a GPS.”

“Temple Beth-El,” I said. “I have now memorized the addresses of every church and synagogue in town, and I’ve practically memorized the phone numbers of all the priests, ministers, and rabbis.”

“The prankster again?” He looked grim.

I went up to make sure Rob was stirring. I found Rose Noire knocking on his door, which popped open just as I reached her side.

“All right, all right,” he muttered. “Why didn’t someone tell me so many of these fires would be in the middle of the night?”

He popped back into his room and from the thumping and scuffling noises, he appeared to be hauling out and donning his gear.

“I’ll fix coffee again,” Rose Noire said.

“And after that, could you watch the boys again while I trail after the firefighters?” I asked. “I have at least a dozen events scheduled in one or another of the temple’s meeting rooms today, and if I’m going to have to rework the schedule again, I’d like to know sooner rather than later.”

“Oh, dear,” she said. “So it’s the prankster again? Of course.”

She flitted downstairs and into the kitchen. I went to throw on my clothes. Warm clothes, in case we were in for another long stretch of standing about in the cold.

Temple Beth-El was also on the Clay County Road, a little farther out of town than the New Life Baptist Church. It was fairly new, and very modern, with a lot of floor-to-ceiling glass windows looking out over the surrounding woods. In any other season, the view from those windows was magical, since members of the congregation had subtly improved the natural beauty of the woods by planting dogwoods and redbuds at its edge for spring blossoms and Japanese maples for fall color.

But as I pulled into the temple parking lot and picked my way through the mounds of snow to find a good stopping place, I glanced up at the glass windows and shuddered. Even if they’d gone in for the kind of thick, energy-efficient glass that would make the inside toasty warm in this weather, just having a view of the snow and ice outside would chill me on a night like this. And knowing that every time I walked in front of one of those windows some lurking prankster might be watching me—

“Stop spooking yourself,” I muttered as I parked the car.