In the video, Maya darted into the room then, but stood staring, with her thumb in her mouth, at the stranger.

“Now who would this be?” Rooney asked. He bent down to touch the child, but Maya cowered behind Tanya’s legs.

“My daughter.” Tanya’s mood changed to belligerent. “What do you want, Rooney?”

“She’s darling,” Rooney said. “And a dead ringer for her beautiful mother. Who’s the father?”

Tanya, looking flustered, backed away. “… go now. Evan’s spying … finds out a man came to see me, he’ll use it against me in court.”

Rooney was circling the room. His next statement was so quiet the microphone didn’t pick it up. Joe and Letty leaned closer to the laptop, straining to hear.

“… loot. I want what’s mine, Tanya.”

He clamped his hand around her wrist, but she jerked it away from him. “Loot? You and Chuck took it all and left me behind, holding the bag.”

Rooney said something else inaudible. He stood inches away from Tanya, his jaw tight with tension.

“Goddammit, I told you, I don’t have it!” Tanya screamed.

Maya began to cry. “No, Mommy!” She clawed at Tanya’s leg and raised her arms to be picked up, but Tanya ignored her daughter’s cries.

Rooney said something, but Maya’s howls drowned it out. She ran toward the stuffed elephant, and from the dizzying camera angles it was obvious she was running up the stairs, dangling Ellie by one ear.

Letty closed the laptop and looked at Joe DeCurtis.

“A high school kid managed to make the audio work—when the FBI couldn’t?” he asked, shaking his head. “I don’t know whether to be frightened or annoyed.”

“You know what this means, Joe,” Letty said. “Rooney’s here, and he’s looking for that loot. He seemed pretty convinced Tanya had it. How much are we talking about?”

Joe rubbed his jaw. “We estimated it could be close to a hundred and fifty thousand dollars’ worth of stuff that they bought here. We do know they’d worked the gold-and-jewelry-buying scam over in Orlando and down in Lauderdale before moving up here when the cops there started investigating them. We searched the unit Tanya and Rooney were living in at the time. We found some odds and ends of sterling silver, a couple gold coins, but nothing of any real value, and definitely no cash. Chuck was living in the efficiency after my mom kicked him out, and we searched that too. Tanya swore up and down that she didn’t know Rooney and Chuck were swindlers, and that they’d actually victimized her.”

“You didn’t believe her?”