I got down on my knees with the broom handle and ran the light along the baseboard.

A bottle cap.

A penny stuck flat.

A rubber band gone hard as a twig.

“Nothing,” I said.

“Keep looking.”

I kept the light moving along the coil, along the cord, along the back of the door where the ice maker line runs.

The dust lay even and gray except for one patch near the left foot of the refrigerator, about the size of a hand, where the floor came up clean enough to shine.