The afternoon sun slanted through the huge windows that ran the length of the apartment and reflected a golden glow off the polished wood floors. At the kitchen counter, Nikki Wade was chopping vegetables for dinner and finding a kind of peace in what many others considered to be a simple act rather tedious and tedious. Of course, ten months earlier she had been none other than a permanent resident of Larkhall - the women's prison - so it was understandable why something as simple as cooking dinner still gave her such a boundless sense of freedom. The sound of the keys turning in the lock made her raise her head, and she smiled when her roommate, and also her girlfriend, came in from the corridor, carrying a briefcase in her hand, which she gently lowered onto the table next to the computer.