When I unlocked the door to our apartment, the air felt cold.

The living room was exactly as we had left it.

The half-empty cups of tea were still on the coffee table.

I went straight to the nursery.

The crib my mother had brought was sitting in the corner.

It was painted a soft yellow, but the paint was chipping where I had scraped it.

It looked ugly now.

It looked like a trap.

A few hours later, two forensic technicians arrived.

They wore blue gloves and carried plastic cases.

They scraped samples of the yellow paint into small vials.

They bagged the tea canisters from the kitchen.

“Is it bad?” I asked the lead technician.

“The lab will have to confirm,” he said.

“But the paint looks like old lead-based industrial stock.”

“It was banned decades ago.”

“Inhaling the dust from sanding this would be highly toxic to a pregnant woman.”

He looked at the crib with a frown.

“She must have kept this stored in an old barn or basement for years,” he said.

“Thank you,” I said.

“Just find the truth.”