I paused to hug her and Juanita, then Gail and even Avril. When it came to Avril, I was polite all of the time, warm when it suited me, and never trusting. I had learned that lesson the hard way, once upon a time.

The five of us swapped notes on the move—who was still unpacking, whose kids were enjoying the new school, who had the worst neighbors. And then Becca sighed happily.

“I’m so glad we all wound up here together after all,” she murmured, lowering her voice. “It feels like we moved from an emerging city to a dying small town.”

“My new neighbors are so excited that we’re here,” Gail said, smiling to herself. “One of them says Huntsville will one day be known as ‘rocket city.’ Maybe we’re arriving right at the start of something amazing.”

“And what does your new neighbor think about these Nazis?” Becca asked pointedly. Gail shrugged.

“She doesn’t seem too troubled that some of us are German. Besides, Trevor said that they aren’t actually Nazis. He said they just had ordinary government jobs in Germany. It’s not their fault the government happened to be run by the devil himself.”

“I just find that so hard to believe,” Becca said helplessly. She glanced at me. “Right from the beginning you said there was something rotten about the whole arrangement, didn’t you, Lizzie?” I’d never hidden my concern or displeasure at the program Calvin was working on, but as he’d requested, I never told anyone why. I tried to shrug noncommittally.

“You know what Bob told me once?” Juanita said suddenly. Everyone turned to look at her, and she leaned forward and whispered, “He said he heard rumors at Fort Bliss that some of those scientists really were in the Nazi party. He even heard that a few were in the SS.”

“There’s no way they’d have been brought to this country if that was true,” Gail said abruptly.

“I didn’t make that up, Gail,” Juanita said defensively. “One of the translators told an engineer and that engineer told Bob. He said that someone in our government falsified some of the German records so more men could come here.”

“You shouldn’t say things like that,” Gail snapped. “It’s just not fair. If those men had anything to do with what happened back there, they’d be rotting in a jail or executed at Nuremberg, not free on our streets.”

I dropped my gaze to the menu, wishing I could hide under the table. When a long moment passed and no one spoke, I looked up reluctantly, only to find the whole table staring at me.

“You know who’d know for sure?” Juanita said, watching me closely.

“Calvin,” Avril said.