The Boy Under the Table by Nicole Trope

which the boy had left lying on the floor, and looked quickly around the kitchen for evidence of what had happened in the house. Everything was still in its place. Only the broken pieces of rope under the table told a different story.
    She helped the boy climb through the window, whispering that Mark would catch him.
    Mark was awake and waiting and he did catch the boy. He had not let Tina down.
    It occurred to her that the boy had no idea if she was there to help or if she had some other terrible motivation.
    His unquestioning acceptance and willingness to go with her made it clear he thought that whatever he was going to could not possibly be more terrible than where he had been.

Pete
     
    Pete forced himself to call only once a week now. He knew they would call him if they found anything, anything at all, but he called them anyway. He needed to know they were still thinking of Lockie.
    They had one of the juniors talk to him these days. She was barely out of the Academy but they had struck up a kind of friendship. Lisa was never too busy.
    ‘Nothing yet, Pete, I’m afraid,’ she would say.
    ‘I know, but I thought—you know . . .’
    ‘Yeah, I know. But, Pete, you have to believe me when I say that Lockie is still on our radar. We haven’t closed the case. It’s still on the top of our lists.’
    Everyone called him Lockie now, like they knew him. It was a technique used by the police so that the victim became real, even after years on the job. He had become Lockie to everyone on about day four.
    ‘So there’s been no word, even dead ends?’
    Lisa sighed. ‘Pete, you and I both know that if anything ever happens—bad news or good—we’ll call you.’
    ‘I know, it’s just . . . the parents are friends, close friends.’
    ‘Yeah, you’ve said. We’re dealing with another missing child at the moment. Six-year-old girl. Cute mop of curls with green eyes, name of Kelly.’
    Pete knew what Lisa was doing. In the kindest way possible she was letting him know that Lockie wasn’t the only kid in trouble. He wasn’t the only child who was now part of some nightmarish reality that no kid should ever have to contemplate. She was changing the subject before he worked himself up, asking questions that had no answers. She was playing to his instinct as a cop, to the cop’s desire get the whole story. Lisa would go far. She had the touch.
    Pete obligingly took the bait. ‘You are?’
    ‘Yeah, but no link I’m afraid. The parents say she was taken from her bed.’
    ‘They say that, do they?’
    ‘That’s what they claim.’
    ‘So you like them for it?’
    ‘Well, I shouldn’t say, but you’re one of us so, yeah, we do. DOCS have known about the family for years. Personally, I think the mother will turn on the stepfather.’
    ‘Nice people!’
    ‘Oh, you know. They did their kid in so, yeah, the best kind of people. I have to go now, Pete. Stay in touch, okay?
    ‘Okay. Thanks, Lisa.’
    He wouldn’t tell Margie about the missing girl. Margie took every child-abuse case really badly. She took them as a personal affront. The way she saw it, God had decided she couldn’t have kids but gave them where they were not wanted.
    He had been part of the police force for forty years and he had never dealt with a missing child before. Kids went missing in his town but only when they were older, and then they were always found. They would have run away to the city or passed out on a couch at a friend’s farm. He wasn’t stupid, he knew this sort of stuff went on. He knew there were people for whom children were things to be used and abused. They weren’t spared the horrors of bad parenting in a small town. There had been that family a year ago who had been the only topic of conversation at the pub for a while. Eventually the kids were taken away and the parents moved on. But stealing another person’s child was not something he’d ever come across. He knew about it from stories in the newspaper and American