Another great story. I've come across a lot of "con-man adjacent" types in business, but AFAIK only one con man at the level of "Tracey" in my personal life.

I didn't lose money (thank you trust issues!), but several in my circle of friends at the time did. One lost several thousand dollars before he made a mistake and my friend caught on to him. As many other commenters have written, your family got off lucky.

IMO you can take a lot of the credit for that. "Tracey" clearly could see that you didn't trust her. I'm guessing she was biding her time until she could win you over before she started extracting money. Then the fire happened. If authorities had started asking questions her semi-well-knit fake identity was going to come unraveled. So she bailed. Good on you.