Letty wrapped her arms across her chest and looked from Joe to Vikki. “You think it’s Rooney, don’t you?”

“Who else?” Joe said.

“But why break into the smallest unit here?” Vikki asked. “And what’s he looking for?”

“Maybe it’s the loot he was accusing Tanya of stealing that day he showed up at her place in New York,” Letty said.

“We never recovered most of the jewelry or silver or gold from their scam when we arrested Tanya,” Joe reminded Vikki. “At the time of Tanya’s arrest, she claimed Chuck and Rooney took it with them. Now, I’m thinking that loot’s what got Chuck killed.”

“Just how much loot are we talking about?” Vikki asked. “I thought these were a couple of low-rent grifters.”

“It was just a guess, but we estimated around a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. But really there’s no telling. The operation they set up here at the Murmuring Surf was at least the third we know of, after similar operations around the state. But according to Trudi Maples, the watch they bought from her—just for the value of the gold—turns out to have been worth thirty thousand dollars.”

Letty had been pondering the “why” of Rooney tossing the efficiency. “When I first got here, there weren’t any available rooms. But Ava offered to let me clear out the unit that she’d been using for storage. It was full of junk—stuff that the maintenance man was supposed to have thrown out or had hauled away, but instead he just shoved it in the efficiency.”

“And the alleged maintenance man was Chuck Sheppard?” Vikki guessed.

“Yeah.” Joe’s phone dinged and he looked down. “Shauna just pulled in.”

Letty paced around her living room. She could see the open door of the efficiency if she stood in the breezeway. She saw Joe and Shauna and Vikki standing outside the unit, saw the patrol officer crouch down and examine the doorknob with her flashlight. She saw the flashlight beam sweeping over the roof of the unit, nodded silently as Joe and Shauna walked past, speaking in low voices. She heard Shauna speaking into her radio.

Eventually, she went inside, and after checking on Maya, and re-latching the patio door, she fixed herself a cup of tea. She opened her laptop and rewatched the video clip with the amplified sound that Sierra had sent her, hoping to find some clue she’d overlooked.

Shortly after two, she heard a discreet tap at the door. She unlocked it and Joe walked inside and flopped wearily onto the sofa.

“Anything?”

“No. If it’s Rooney, the guy’s a damn Houdini. I even got a ladder and went up on the roof. We walked the beach, thinking maybe he’s camping in the dunes or something, but there’s no sign of him.”