She opened the door quietly and slipped into the hall, but all she could hear were muffled voices, quieter now. She kept walking to the bathroom. Just as she was about to step back into the hallway to return to her room, she heard voices again and looked up to see Georgie standing at the door, talking to someone inside the room, out of sight.
Meg’s heart pounded. She quickly retreated into the bathroom again, behind the wall, listening. There was a man’s voice, but she couldn’t make out the words. After a moment, the door closed with a thud and Georgie hurried up the hall. Meg held her breath as she passed just inches away and disappeared down the stairs.
Meg exhaled, waited for her heart rate to settle, before she looked out into the hallway again. It was quiet. She slipped out of the bathroom and tiptoed up the corridor to her room, locking the door behind her.
There was a roar as Georgie heaved up the rusty garage door. Meg stood by her side, surveying the sight in front of them. She’d been expecting a car, or at least a space where one would fit. Maybe some shelves and a few bikes.
Not this garage. The whole space was packed full. From where she stood, she could see an old treadmill, a couple of fishing rods, at least five rusty bikes and countless cardboard boxes.
‘Oh my God,’ Meg whispered, under her breath.
‘It’s actually not as bad as it looks,’ Georgie said. ‘All the packing boxes came from Nan and Pop’s place. Anna’s box is probably in there somewhere.’ She squeezed her way to a tallboy in the back corner and started rummaging through a drawer. She pulled out a Stanley knife and held it up. ‘I’ll slice ’em, you check ’em.’ She looked at the time on her phone. ‘I’ve got an hour, then I’ve got some work to do.’
‘At the pub?’ Meg asked.
‘Nah, my other job,’ she said, yawning. She pierced the tape on the top of a box.
Meg nodded, thinking about Georgie’s OnlyFans profile. How much was she making? At five bucks a month, it couldn’t be much.
Her mind flicked back to the night before, when she’d watched Georgie creep down the hallway. She’d been having sex with whoever was staying in that room. Was it recreational? Or another income stream? Hugh Thorburn had been talking to Sue at the bar that morning, around nine o’clock, when Meg was on her way out. Was it him in that room? The way he’d been flirting with Georgie the night before, she wouldn’t put it past him.
Meg sighed, deciding it was none of her business, and flipped open the top of the closest box, dust tickling her nose. She sneezed, then rummaged through the contents. Cookbooks, mostly. She moved on to the next one. Quilting materials.
Once Georgie had opened all the boxes, she started checking them too.
After an hour, they’d found nothing.
Georgie sat down on one of the smaller boxes. ‘Looks like it’s not here.’
‘Thanks, anyway.’ Meg reached for her bag and handed Georgie four fifties. Georgie tucked the notes into her bra top. What a waste of money.
‘Can I ask you for a favour?’ Meg said.
‘Another favour, you mean.’
Meg bit her tongue, thinking about the two hundred bucks she’d just parted with. Georgie was hardly doing this out of the goodness of her heart. ‘Would you do a DNA test? It’s really easy, just spitting into a tube. It’ll confirm one way or another if Anna is my mother.’
‘Ah, I dunno,’ Georgie said, hesitant. ‘Mum doesn’t seem too keen on all this Anna stuff.’
‘I’d pay you, obviously.’
‘How much?’
‘Fifty bucks?’
‘A hundred.’
‘Done.’
Georgie stood up. ‘Alright, I’ve gotta—’ She stopped abruptly, frowning. ‘I wonder what that is.’
Meg followed her gaze to an archive box that sat high up on the shelves on the other side of the garage. It was dark brown cardboard with a wood-grain print and the lid was torn at one corner. Someone had reinforced the bottom with masking tape that came halfway up the sides of the box. As they got closer, they could see that someone had writtenAnna Mitchellon the side in texta, barely legible on the dark background.
‘How the hell are we going to reach it?’ Georgie said.
Meg pulled on the metal shelving to see if it was secured to the wall. It seemed solid enough. She stepped up onto the first shelf.
‘Spot me from behind, in case I fall.’
