Read Online She's Not Coming Home by Philip Cox - Free Book Online Page A

phone back in his pocket and looked up at the sky. It was clear and blue, but there were some heavy clouds building up to the west. He looked up and down the street, as he tried to figure out these withdrawals. Five hundred dollars in the space of two or three days. Ever since they had moved in together, he and Ruth had divided up the household expenditure into two areas of responsibility. Matt dealt with household bills: the mortgage, insurances, electricity, that sort of thing. Ruth took care of the groceries. Sometimes on a Saturday or Sunday they would all make a trip to an out-of-town mall, but normally she would call in somewhere on the way home. She would quite frequently use that particular Safeway store during her lunch break. Or so Matt thought. Because that was what Ruth told him. He knew she would normally pay in cash: she owned a credit card, but she preferred to withdraw cash at an ATM before she went shopping. Said she found it easier to keep track of the account that way. Hence the transactions at that ATM.  But the amounts: two hundred did seem a large amount for groceries, considering she would have had to walk home with them. Perhaps that was to take care of several days’ visits. Her knew she liked to shop little and often, preferring fresh produce.  But why three hundred two days later? Sure, it was a holiday weekend then, but even so…
    He stepped out from the doorway and over to a bench by a bus stop. An elderly lady with two large plastic bags was sitting in the centre of the bench, and moved to the other end when Matt sat down.
    He slumped onto the bench and rubbed his face. What the hell was happening? Where the hell was Ruth?
    And why the hell would she need five hundred dollars just days before she disappeared?

Chapter Eleven
    Still trying to figure out why Ruth would need five hundred dollars other than to finance leaving him, Matt hurried down Washington Street. It was nearly midday, and presumably the workers at Cambridge Pharmaceuticals would be starting their lunch breaks very soon. There was another bus stop with a bench right outside the building – the next bus stop from the one he had previously stopped at, in fact – and he stood by the stop, leaning on a Boston Globe vending machine, as the bench was full of people waiting for a bus. He made himself as comfortable as he could, half sitting on the machine and began to watch the glass doors of the building.
    Just before twelve a man – Matt estimated mid-twenties – dressed in a suit and having an animated conversation on his cell phone entered the building. Matt jumped slightly as there was a loud hiss behind him. A bus had arrived at the stop. Matt turned his head ninety degrees and looked up at the dot matrix indicator display: the bus was Route 275 heading Downtown. All but one of the occupants of the bench got on the bus; the remaining occupant shuffled up to the opposite end and buried himself back in that day’s USA Today .
    Matt winced as he caught the full force of the roar of the bus’s engines as it accelerated away from the stop and headed Downtown. As he rubbed the inside of his ear with one finger he noticed some figures leave the Cambridge Pharmaceuticals building: two men and three women. He recognized none of them; certainly Ruth was not one of the group. As he watched them walk down Washington, talking and laughing, he considered catching them up and asking if they knew Ruth. He decided against it – for now.
    A few minutes later, a middle-aged woman left the building, followed shortly by two younger men.
    Over the next ten minutes, around a dozen people left the building: all headed in the same direction, down Washington. Two of the three women he saw leave earlier returned, each carrying a small brown paper bag, presumably with a sandwich or something.
    ‘Excuse me dear, it this where I catch the airport bus?’
    Matt looked up into the face of a white haired elderly woman.
    ‘Excuse me?’ he asked.
    ‘I