Ruby’s eyes filled with tears. She and Charlotte hadn’t heard anyone breaking into the apartment, and the door was intact, so the thieves must have had access to a key—most likely from the landlord or the concierge. It made Ruby nauseated to think of neighbors lying in wait to take advantage of the family. Had one of them reported the Dachers to the police in the first place? Was there someone in this building who was directly responsible for their deportation?

Pulse pounding, Ruby slipped into the kitchen, which was equally destroyed, and then into the bedroom of Madame and Monsieur Dacher. The bed was stripped bare, and all that remained on the dresser top were rings of dust. Still, there were some clothes dangling from hangers in the closet, so she quickly rifled through until she found a scratchy wool sweater that had belonged to Monsieur Dacher. She couldn’t imagine why someone would have left it when winter clothes were at a premium, but perhaps their hands had already been full of other valuables.

Madame Dacher’s silk gloves and anniversary ring were gone, of course, though Ruby dutifully searched for them. In the end, she settled for a silk blouse that had been hidden between two plain cotton dresses. In Charlotte’s small room, she found more destruction, and it appeared that the blue dress the girl had asked for was missing as well. Ruby hastily chose two cotton dresses instead; she suspected they’d been hand-sewn by Madame Dacher, and she could make the argument to Charlotte that they had more sentimental value. There were no family pictures anywhere; they’d surely been taken for the value of the silver frames that held them.

She grabbed a couple of Charlotte’s books and then headed back to her own apartment, closing the door forever to a sad piece of the past.

“Did you get the things I asked for?” Charlotte asked.

“You know,” Ruby said carefully, “I think your mother must have taken her anniversary ring and gloves with her. And that blue dress you mentioned? The more I thought about it, the more I realized how impractical it would be. You’ll need everyday dresses. I got one of your papa’s sweaters, though!” She handed the armful of belongings to Charlotte, who looked disappointed. “I also brought a few of your books.”

“And a family photo?” Charlotte asked quietly.

“Oh, I thought perhaps that wasn’t a good idea,” Ruby replied. “What if someone searches our new apartment and finds it? Besides, I feel sure that your parents will be back in no time. You won’t need a photo to remember them by.”

Charlotte bit her lip. “The apartment was looted, wasn’t it?”

Ruby hesitated. “Yes. I’m so sorry.”

“There are truly terrible people in this world.”

Ruby pulled Charlotte into a hug. “But there are good people too. And I like to think that in the end, the good ones outnumber the bad.”

Charlotte let herself be held for a moment before pulling away. She moved to the window and looked out for a long time without saying a word. Ruby didn’t interrupt her; she knew that the girl needed to say good-bye in her own way.

THE NEW APARTMENT WAS IN a nice building on the rue de Lasteyrie in the Passy district, a thirty-minute walk across the river. The neighborhood, though close to both the busy Avenue Foch and the bustling Avenue des Champs-élysées, was quiet and residential. In fact, the street had much the same feel as the rue Amélie.

The landlord, a man named Georges Savatier, was there to greet them when they arrived. “You must be our new tenants, Fleur and her cousin Hélène,” he said, smiling brightly. “Come, come, we must get you settled.” He was perhaps a decade older than Ruby, with a deep voice, a substantial waistline, and a big, bushy black mustache, which seemed at odds with his very bald head. His smile was wide and jolly, and Ruby liked him immediately.

He showed them to an apartment two flights up, explaining, as they walked, that the building didn’t have a lift but that he knew they were young and healthy and hoped they’d be comfortable. “Our second floor is also our quietest,” he said, giving Ruby a meaningful look. “You have no neighbors.” He stopped in front of apartment C and smiled. “This will be you. Apartments A, B, and D are vacant.”

“What happened to the people who used to live there?” Charlotte asked.

Monsieur Savatier frowned as he turned the key and opened the door. “They left some months ago in the middle of the night. Perhaps to the countryside.” He gave Ruby a quick look. Had the previous owners been rounded up in the recent raids too?

Ruby and Charlotte followed him inside. It was immediately obvious that the apartment was half the size of the place they’d come from, but it had a nice terrace that overlooked a private courtyard.

“My favorite part of the apartment,” Monsieur Savatier said, beckoning toward one of the two doors in the back. “Come, I will show you.” He led them into a tiny room with one small window. “This, I think, will be the master bedroom,” he said.

Ruby was about to protest that it would hardly fit a bed when his smile widened and he pointed toward the wall on the left. “I understand that you are in need of some discreet storage space.”

He put his hand on a panel of the wall just above waist level. He pushed gently up and in, and the wall slid open, revealing a crawl space large enough for a man to sit up comfortably. “Voilà,” Monsieur Savatier said. “In case you need to store anything here.”

“It’s perfect,” Ruby said, exchanging looks with Charlotte. It was larger than the hall closet in the old building, and it was also a more secure hiding spot, concealed within their own apartment. It would be much easier to slip pilots in and out without being observed. The wall space above it was filled with cupboards and cabinets; it was designed in a way that made it appear the entire wall was used for storage.

“Yes, I thought so,” Monsieur Savatier said. “I built it myself. I cannot do much to help; I manage several buildings, and I’m sure there are eyes on me. But this, in a small way, is my contribution.” He pointed up and added, “I live just two floors above with my wife. We are both here to help if you ever need us. Below you, the apartments are mostly deserted too, so you won’t have to worry about prying eyes. And of course there’s no concierge.”

“I don’t know how to thank you,” Ruby said.

“Don’t thank me yet. I haven’t told you the bad news. The building next door, which I also manage, has several Nazi officers as tenants. So you are living very close to them. But I think they do not suspect a thing.”

BY LATE EVENING, AUBERT’S FRIENDS had delivered their furniture and belongings, and Charlotte and Ruby had begun to make the cramped new apartment feel like home. There were more boxes to unpack, but Ruby could see Charlotte’s eyelids drooping. “Why don’t you go to bed?”

Charlotte yawned. “But there’s still so much to do.”

“It will all be here in the morning. It’s been a long day.”

Charlotte nodded and headed into the larger bedroom. They had determined it would be hers; having her stay in such close proximity to young pilots wouldn’t be appropriate.

“Thank you,” Charlotte said, pausing at her doorway and looking back to the living room, where Ruby sat at the small table in the corner.

“You don’t need to thank me for anything.”

“But I do. You didn’t have to bring me with you.”

“Charlotte, you’re my family now,” Ruby said firmly. “I wouldn’t have it any other way. Now get some sleep. Everything will look better in the morning.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

January 1943

By the beginning of 1943, food was scarcer than ever, but Ruby and Charlotte were surviving. They had helped eight pilots since moving into the new apartment, and though there was still no word about Charlotte’s parents, the girl seemed to have reached some kind of peace within herself.

At night, Charlotte and Ruby would sit together with an oil lamp burning between them and talk about the pilots they’d saved, wondering how many had made it back to England or America, how many had returned to the skies. They made up vivid stories of the men they’d known only briefly. An American fighter named Earl Johnson, for example, had stayed with them in August, and now they imagined him flying missions over western Germany, shooting Nazi aces out of the sky. A British bomber named Jay Cash had been their guest for almost a week in October, and they had convinced themselves that he was now the one dropping bombs on Nazi-run factories in the Paris suburbs.

In the first week of the new year, they hosted an RAF pilot named Jon Payne, who stared long and hard at Ruby on his first night with them. “I’m sorry,” he said when she caught him looking for the third time. “You just remind me of someone.”

“Who?”