“Yes. I am aware. The traitor Marcel Benoit.”

Ruby swallowed hard. So she hadn’t been stopped on a whim. They had sought her out. This was much worse. “My husband wasn’t a traitor. The evidence against him was false.”

The officer guffawed. “Madame, we do not make mistakes. But you, it seems, have made a serious one. Why do you have so many ration tickets if you live alone?”

She thought quickly. “I offered to pick up some supplies for neighbors.”

“Ah. And these neighbors—as you call them—are not Allied pilots trying to escape from France?”

“Of course not!” Ruby tried to appear indignant.

“Ah yes, I’d nearly forgotten. You’re merely out for a walk.” He grabbed her by the arm and shoved her toward the car. The other officer, who’d been in front of her, took her other arm, while the man who’d been behind her walked around to the driver’s seat.

“What are you doing?” Ruby demanded. “I have rights!”

The men laughed as they shoved her roughly into the back of the car. The mustached man climbed in beside her. “Unfortunately for you, madame, that isn’t true at all.”

AT THE POLICE HEADQUARTERS, RUBY was thrown into a small cell by herself and told to wait. She spent the day worrying about Charlotte. What if the police found out where Ruby lived now? What if Charlotte was arrested? Ruby still felt confident that her own American citizenship would spare her from execution. But if they found Charlotte, it would be only a matter of time until they realized she was Jewish. How had Ruby allowed her to participate in something so dangerous? The guilt overwhelmed her, and she sat on the floor sobbing until nightfall, when a guard came to retrieve her, yanking her to her feet and hauling her into a room that looked like an office.

Inside, she found two uniformed guards waiting for her. “Tell us everything you know,” one of them said without preamble. “If you lie to us, you’ll be shot first thing in the morning.”

Ruby struggled to keep a neutral face. Her hands went to her belly. Breathe, she reminded herself. Stay calm. They have nothing on you, or you’d already be dead. “I haven’t done anything,” she said evenly. “You have made a mistake. I am American. You can’t execute me.”

The guard shrugged. “Have it your way.”

A female guard entered a moment later with a bologna sandwich and a cup of water, and though Ruby worried that the food had been drugged, she wolfed it down; she was starving. Soon after, another guard came in and dragged her to a cold, damp cell with a straw mattress on a dirt floor. “Get some sleep,” he said, not unkindly, and then he closed and locked the door behind her.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

April 1944

“Ruby has been arrested.” Lucien’s face was pale when he arrived at Charlotte’s door that night, far later than she’d expected him. She had been pacing the apartment, worried sick that Ruby hadn’t come home. The last Charlotte had heard, Ruby was on her way to deliver Christopher, the American pilot, to the Montparnasse station. Had he been careless? Followed her too closely? Drawn unwanted attention to both of them? Charlotte had been bracing for the worst as the hours rolled by with no sign of Ruby, but Lucien’s words still broke her.

“No, no, no.” Charlotte was suddenly unable to breathe. “There must be a mistake. Lucien, tell me there’s a mistake.”

He shook his head slowly. “There is no mistake, my dear. The Feldgendarmerie picked her up hours ago. She’s to be turned over to the Gestapo in the morning.”

“No. Lucien, how did this happen?”

Lucien didn’t reply until after he’d stepped into the apartment and she’d closed the door behind them. “Someone must have betrayed her. They knew exactly who she was when they stopped her. From what I understand, they didn’t even notice the pilot tailing her. He made it to his rendezvous point at the station; he’s the one who told us of her arrest.”

“Did they hurt her?”

“I don’t know.” He took her hands. “But, Charlotte, Ruby is strong. She will survive whatever they throw at her, and they won’t dare execute her, because she is an American. She will survive.”

“But she’s pregnant,” Charlotte whispered.

All the remaining color seemed to drain from Lucien’s face. “What?”

Charlotte began to cry; she had promised Ruby that she’d keep her secret, but things were very different now. “If the Germans find out . . .”

“Thomas is the father?”

“Yes.”

“The pregnancy isn’t visible yet?”

“Not really.” Ruby’s belly had begun to swell, but not enough that someone who didn’t know her would take notice.

“That’s good. But if she’s sent east . . .” Lucien’s voice trailed off, and he and Charlotte exchanged horrified looks.

“They kill the pregnant ones first,” Charlotte said, her voice hollow. “That’s what I’ve heard.”

“Let’s just hope for now that it does not come to that. I will try tomorrow to find out everything I can about her situation.” He paused. “In the meantime, I think you should stay with me. If they’ve arrested Ruby, it’s only a matter of time before the trail leads to this apartment. I will speak with Monsieur Savatier about removing anything incriminating, but for now, Charlotte, we must go. Quickly.”

Charlotte wiped her eyes and nodded. It was only a place, after all. What was important was that they all found a way to survive.

“I will do everything in my power to make sure she’s okay,” Lucien said, as if reading her mind.

“Thank you,” Charlotte replied. But the words felt hollow, because she knew he could do only so much. For now, Ruby was on her own, and her fate rested in the hands of the increasingly hostile German authorities.

CHARLOTTE COULDN’T SLEEP THAT NIGHT, but she dozed off after dawn, falling into an abyss of nightmares. At first, she could see Ruby at the bottom of a dark hole, crying out for help. And then she was on a crowded train car headed east. In the third dream, she saw Ruby delivering a stillborn baby in a dirty jail cell. When Charlotte awoke, sweaty and panting, Lucien was gone and she was alone.

He returned late that afternoon, his expression grim. “I’ve spoken with Monsieur Savatier,” he said. “We cleared out the hidden closet. If the Germans come, they won’t find anything out of the ordinary. Monsieur Savatier will contact me if Ruby returns or if anyone comes looking for her.”

“Thank you.” Charlotte hesitated. “Is there any word about what has happened to her?”

Lucien cleared his throat. “She has been moved to the prison at Fresnes.”

“Fresnes?”

“I’m afraid so.”

They didn’t say anything for a moment, but Charlotte knew that Lucien was thinking the same thing she was. This was a bad sign. The conditions were reportedly horrific; people passing by could hear the screams of tortured prisoners.

“Have you learned anything else?” Charlotte asked.

“Just that a man named Léo Huet disappeared at the same time and hasn’t turned up in any of the prisons, as far as we can tell. He was working on the escape line, and the suspicion is that he betrayed Ruby and a few others. Laure has also been apprehended, as has another man who ran a safe house just outside Paris.”

“And have any of them talked yet?”

“Not as far as I know. But the Nazis have their techniques.”

“Will they torture her?”

“I don’t know.”

But from the way Lucien averted his eyes, Charlotte guessed that the answer was probably yes. She felt suddenly sick to her stomach. “Surely the fact that she is American will help her.”

“Yes. I hope so,” Lucien said. But his tone was flat and unconvincing. “Charlotte, if there’s a way to survive, Ruby will. I know she will.”

“Yes,” Charlotte agreed. But she also knew that survival might not be a possibility. There was no reason to say it aloud.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

June 1944

From Dartmouth, Thomas and the other two British pilots who’d made their escape from Plouha in January had been escorted to London by two MPs, who took them first to the movements office and then to the Ministry of Defence. There, Thomas had been grilled for hours by an MI9 man who was evidently trying to confirm that Thomas was who he said he was. “You never know,” the man said at the end, when he was assured that Thomas was telling the truth. “It wouldn’t be the first time the Germans had tried to infiltrate us. Welcome back, son.”