"What?"

"False bravado. Alcohol makes you feel invincible, or so I've read."

"Why do you need to feel like that?"

"Because I'm about to answer your goddamn questions."

If it wasn't for the words she had just heard, Laura would have reprimanded Toni when she saw her pull a pack of cigarettes out of her pocket. They both had agreed that Toni wouldn't smoke anywhere but in her own room, but as Laura watched her light the cigarette and pull the smoke into her lungs, she decided not to argue the point. Grabbing an empty candy dish from the end table, she placed it in front of Toni.

Taking another drag, Toni followed it with a gulp of wine and then turned to look at Laura. "That's the way I used to be," she said, her voice low and steady. "Invincible. I wasn't afraid of anything...not anything. I could walk into a crowded auditorium, stand on the stage and face hundreds of people, and my blood pressure wouldn't raise a notch. Not one fucking notch. I'd go places I'd never been without giving it a second thought, and I'd shop in the finest stores, eat at the fanciest restaurants and dance in the loudest clubs this country has to offer without a care in the world. And I was educated. I was smart. I was too smart.

"They say that a good education is what you need to make it in this world, but mine almost killed me. Because with that intelligence, with that learned background of mine, when I walked into Thornbridge, I walked in with the confidence that I could handle anything...anything that came along. But I was wrong. Confidence to a Thornbridge screw was like catnip to a cat."

Stopping to pull more nicotine into her lungs, Toni tried to decide what Laura needed to know and what she didn't, but Toni's mind was a jumble, so as thoughts entered, she spoke them as if she was reading them from a book. "I was in Sutton Hall long enough to learn the rules, but Thornbridge had its own set, and it didn't take me long to realize that Sutton Hall was five-star compared to that hole in the north of this country. Sutton was relatively new, so the cells were modern and clean, but Thornbridge was over a century old. The cells were cramped and dank, and the mattresses were ghastly. They were barely an inch thick and stained with God knows what. They smelled like death...or something far worse. The plumbing was horrid, and the stench of human waste hung in the air like a shroud. And it was cold. It was so fucking cold.

"Each cell had a window no bigger than a shoe box. I remember thinking how stupid it was that they actually put bars in front of them. Like somehow we could slip through something that small and get away. Most of the glass was broken, and the cracks were covered over with tape. In the summer when the sun was high, it was like looking through a kaleidoscope. But in the winter...in the winter you'd have to stuff as much clothing as you dared into that space to try to keep the cold from coming in, but it always found a way. It was like it just snaked its way through the mortar."

Stopping to take a sip of wine, Toni stubbed out her cigarette and lit another. "I thought the meals at Sutton Hall were bad, but nothing could have prepared me for Thornbridge. Half the time what they gave us tasted like detergent, and when it didn't, it had been cooked for so long it was like a putrid pudding. The only good thing about being sent down the block was the fact that they made our trays first. When we did get food, it still looked like food.

"I couldn't believe anything like Thornbridge could exist in our country, but I knew that once I talked to Kris, she'd get in touch with the authorities and tell them what was going on. In Sutton Hall, we got our phone privileges in a week, but in Thornbridge, they made you wait for a month. So, I waited. Patiently counting down the days, but my counting stopped on day twenty-nine."

"Why?"

"Late in the afternoon, I was escorted to the governor's office and shown over a dozen photographs of cons, or should I say dead cons. Lying on steel tables, with their naked shoulders and faces whiter than white, I knew in an instant that they had been taken in a morgue. I still had no idea...no fucking clue why he wanted me to see them, but then he explained. He said most of the women in Thornbridge had no connections outside the walls. The nutters' families had long since forgotten them and the sane ones, well their crimes were so heinous that their families refused all contact, but he knew there were a few of us who didn't fall into those categories. He said he wanted to make sure I understood that he wasn't about to lose what he called his lucrative career because of a con who couldn't keep her mouth shut. He told me the women in the photographs all believed they were smarter than he was, but all of them...all of them died before they ever got a chance to make their first phone call."

"Oh my God," Laura said in a ragged whisper.

"The next morning, when I called Krista for the first time, I stood outside the officer's lounge on the only phone we were allowed to use, and I talked to her about the weather. She kept saying she wanted to visit, wanted to see how I was doing, but I couldn't risk it. I just couldn't, so no matter how many times she asked for a visiting order, I'd never send one. I wasn't about to die like those women. I was smart and I was going to survive, but it didn't take me long to realize that the screws weren't my only enemies.

"You can't erase the air of a proper upbringing in a day or a week, or even a year, and those women inside those walls hated me for it. I wasn't like them. I wasn't hard and angry. I wasn't vicious. I had a conscience, and they didn't. In Sutton Hall it wasn't like that. There, the women were all just trying to do their time until they got out, but in Thornbridge, all the cons had was time, so they used it the only way knew how. They'd spend their nights making shivs out of toothbrushes or plastic cutlery stolen from the servery, and whenever they got a chance, they'd try to stab you...just because they could," Toni said in a whisper. "They got me over a dozen times."

Hearing Laura's gasp, Toni looked over. "You said you wanted to know, but I'll stop if you want me to."

Laura wiped a tear from her face and shook her head. Hastily drinking the rest of her wine, she reached for the bottle with a trembling hand.

Hearing the neck of the bottle tap against the rim of the glass, Toni reached over and took it from Laura. Steadily refilling both of their glasses, Toni stubbed out her cigarette and then paused to take a drink before she began to speak, her voice still as calm and emotionless as it had been when she started.

"I had been there almost two months before a screw came into my cell after lights out. It had rained all day, and I was lying in the dark listening to the water drip off the roof when I heard my cell door open. That place was so old, there wasn't a door that didn't squeak or a hinge that didn't squeal, and even though the lights were off, there was enough coming from the courtyard that I could see it was one of the men. He was tall and heavyset, but his face was in the shadows, so I never knew which one it was...and then he said, 'I heard you think you're pretty smart. Well, we don't like smart around here.' I didn't move. I didn't know what was happening or why he felt the need to tell me that, but then I heard a noise, and I knew he was taking off his belt. My first thought was that he was going to try to rape me, so I jumped up preparing to defend myself...and that's when the belt hit me across the face. Christ, it hurt, but before I could even cry out because of the pain, I heard the belt cutting through the air. I ducked and it glanced off my back, and when I heard that sound again, I knew he had no intention of stopping. I fell to my bed and curled up in a ball trying to protect myself anyway I could as he just kept whipping me. Over and over and over again until my entire body was burning from the sting...and then he just stopped. Just like that. I heard the door open...and he was gone.

"After that, every few weeks I'd be visited in the night for a bit of fun as they called it. Sometimes it would only be a punch or a kick, but there were some nights when it seemed to go on forever. And when they were in a really foul mood, they'd use the buckled end, and I'd end up going to medical to get stitched up.

"So, I started learning the unwritten rules of Thornbridge. If you didn't want the screws to notice you, you didn't notice them. You kept your eyes on the floor when they were around, never making eye contact. To them, it was a challenge, and they were more than ready to answer it. In the servery, if they came near you, you placed your hands palms down on the table, showing you were unarmed, and at night, you wore as many shirts as you could so the beatings wouldn't hurt as much."

Stopping for a moment, Toni finished the wine in her glass and lit another cigarette. After the third drag, she said, "But above all else, the one rule you always followed, the one you never, ever broke, was interfering when a screw was punishing a prisoner. The rule was to walk away, and I had learned to follow their rules...or so I thought.

"I had been there close to six months and one afternoon I heard screaming from the second level. When I looked up, one of the screws was holding a con named Betty over the railing. She was a twig of a woman with rotten teeth and a foul mouth, sentenced to life for murdering her parents in their bed. From what I could gather, she apparently spilled some tea on the guard as he was making his rounds, and he decided to teach her a lesson. He had her by her ankles, dangling her over the railing and laughing as he pretended to let go and then not, all the while promising that the next time, he'd let her fall. All the cons started disappearing into their cells, knowing there was nothing they could do, but I couldn't move. Something told me that the bastard was going to drop her...and then he did. I didn't have time to think about consequences or rules. I just reacted and somehow managed to break her fall, but in all the commotion, for a split-second, I forgot where I was. I looked up at that son of a bitch and called him every name...every fucking name I could think of...and then some guards grabbed me from behind and took me down the block. They beat me and they starved me, and when they finally took me back to my cell four weeks later, I thought the worst was over...but I was wrong."

Laura was staring at the glass in her hand as she listened. Revolted yet enthralled by Toni's story, it wasn't until she heard Toni's voice crack that she looked up, her breath catching in her throat at the sight of Toni's transformation. Her forehead and upper lip were now dotted with sweat, and her face had paled considerably. She held one hand to her stomach as if trying to keep something inside, while the other held a cigarette made almost entirely out of ash.

"Toni, it's okay to stop," Laura said. "You don't have to go on."

Clenching her teeth, Toni said, "You wanted to know."

"We can do this later."

"We do it now!"

Toni's belly had been on slow simmer since she began speaking, but now it was rolling. Dinner and drinks were tumbling, and the bile created rose in her throat. She winced at its sting, but forced it back down. She wasn't through. She would not let them win. She would never let them win.

Dropping the remains of her cigarette into the candy dish, Toni took a long, stuttered breath. "Just before lights out that night, Betty came to my cell. She said that she owed me for saving her life, and she wanted me to know that the screw who tried to kill her was going to visit me that night. So, I put on all the clothes that I could...and I waited. A few hours later, he showed up. Christ, he smelled vile. A mixture of cigars and alcohol and body odor, it was enough to make you gag, and then I heard the sound of his buckle being loosened..." Toni stopped, staring off into space as she remembered that night. "...and then I heard him unzip his trousers."

"Oh, dear God, no," Laura gasped, bringing her hand to her mouth. "Oh, please God, no."

"In that instant, in less time than it takes a person to blink, something inside of me just snapped. There was no way I was going to let that bastard rape me, and my fear turned into fury. I launched myself off the cot and dove into the darkness until I found him. I smashed my head into his face, and I just kept swinging at him...I just kept swinging at him over and over and over again.

"No con ever fought back, so I took him by surprise, but it didn't take long before he got the upper hand and began pushing me across the cell. When we stepped into the light, I could see blood all over his face. It was pouring out of his nose, but he didn't seem to notice...or maybe he didn't care. I don't know. When he got me to the wall, he pushed me hard against the rock, but I just kept fighting. I could taste blood in my mouth, and the stone was cutting into my face, but there was no way that bastard was going to take me like that. No fucking way! It was at that moment when I realized I had become what I had been convicted of being...a murderer. Because if there had been a weapon, if there had been something I could have used to kill him, I would have. I would have gutted that bastard without one ounce of remorse. I wouldn't have asked for forgiveness or offered an apology. I would have cut out his heart...just like that."

Toni's voice drifted off as emotions welled in her throat. Taking another deep, ragged breath, she let it out slowly. "It felt like an eternity as we stood there and fought. His hands were everywhere, groping and squeezing and hurting me, and his words were so filthy, so utterly appalling, but as each minute passed, I grew weaker. He was so fucking strong, and I knew I wasn't going to be able to stop him. I knew it was going to happen...and I wanted to die. I so wanted to die. Somehow...somehow I found this last bit of energy, and I pushed as hard as I could, trying to twist away from him...and then something...something let loose. I started to scream. Christ, it hurt. I didn't know what had happened, but I was...I was afraid to look. The bastard...it felt like the bastard had ripped off my arm. Jesus Christ, I had never felt pain like that before.

"For a second or two, he just stared at me. I guess I scared him. I don't know, but as he came at me again, my cell door swung open, and I heard a woman shouting. There weren't many women screws in Thornbridge, and up until that night, I thought them no better than the men, but she proved me wrong. Odd, how a few days earlier she had kicked me awake and now...now she was saving my life. I guess beatings were one thing, but rape...rape was something else. I crumpled to the floor when she pulled him away, and then they left. They closed the door, turned the key...and just left me there. I stayed on the floor until the next morning when they took me to medical to put my arm back in its socket."

Slowly, Toni got to her feet, swaying slightly as she stood tall. She held one hand hard against her stomach, trying in vain to quiet the churning, while the other had turned into a fist, and her jaw, once strong and defiant, now trembled uncontrollably. "You wanted to know why I don't see myself being with anyone," she said, her voice so weak Laura leaned closer to hear. "Because every time...every fucking time someone touches me, every time someone gets too close, all I feel is rage. I think of that night. I think of his hands. I think of his smell and the pain and the terror, and how much I wanted to kill him. How much I still want to kill him!" Clamping her hand over her mouth, Toni ran to her bedroom, pushing the door open with such force that it slammed against the wall. Bouncing back, it almost hit Laura as she ran to catch up.

Toni barely made it to the toilet before her stomach emptied, and standing in the doorway, Laura looked on in shock. A minute passed, and taking a hesitant step in the woman's direction, Laura said, "Toni-"

"Get out!" Toni screamed between heaves. "Get the fuck out!" Again, her stomach lurched, but there was nothing left to expel, and with a sigh, she sat back on her haunches. Sensing Laura was still in the room, Toni looked over and glared. "For Christ's sake, I'm begging you. Please...please just leave me be."

It was a plea Laura could not ignore. She had trampled on Toni's privacy again, and with regret etched on her face, she backed out of the room and shut the door. With a heavy heart, she walked to the bed and sat down, quietly waiting as she sniffled back her tears and worried about the woman on the other side of the door. She had no idea why Toni had chosen tonight to speak truths and terrors. Why she seemed so intent on getting every word out, but she had and the result wasn't uplifting. Laura had been the one pushing to hear the story, prodding for information and believing the result would be cleansing. It wasn't, and Laura felt dreadful. There was no epiphany to be found amongst the ruins of what Thornbridge had done to Toni. There was only more pain.

Taking a stuttered breath, Laura looked around the bedroom and the tiniest of grins appeared on her face. The room was vibrant and comfortable, and by Laura's standards, incredibly neat. The newly purchased books were carefully stacked on the dresser because the floor was no longer good enough for literature, and the bed was skillfully made with corners crisp, and pillows fluffed until they were perfect. There were no clothes scattered about or shoes on the floor, and the nightstand held only a clock, a lamp and Toni's wallet. The room was lived in, but just barely. Sitting there, Laura wondered if Toni would ever allow her world to include more than just four walls, some books and a carton of smokes.

Suddenly, a thought popped into Laura's head. It was a crazy idea...or was it? Before she could make up her mind, she heard the bathroom door open, and Toni walked out, looking disheveled and incredibly tired.

"Hey," Laura said softly. "I know you probably don't want me in here, but I couldn't leave until I knew you were all right."

For a few seconds, Toni just stared at Laura, and then she said quietly, "Please don't ask any questions. I can't handle any more tonight."

"I won't. I just wanted to make sure you were feeling better."

"Other than the fact that I just wasted perfectly good lasagna and several glasses of Chianti, you mean?"

"Yeah, besides that."

"I'll be okay, Laura. I'm just...I'm just really wiped out."

"All right," Laura said as she got up and walked to the door. "I'm going to make some tea. Would you like some?"

"That would be great. Thanks."

No sooner had Laura left the bedroom when her idea returned. Stopping a few feet from the door, she chewed on her lip as she weighed the pros and cons. Turning back around, she returned to Toni's room.

"Toni?" she said, standing in the doorway.

Staring at the floor, Toni looked up. "Yeah."

"How'd you like to go on a holiday with me?"

Chapter Twenty.

It had been a spur-of-the-moment idea, but lying in bed that night, the more Laura thought about it, the more it made sense. Toni had locked herself in a box. A dark, gray box filled with the noise and pollution of the city and the chaos of crowds, with buildings blocking out the sun and people too busy to remember what life was about. They had forgotten about green pastures and rivers swirling with life, and being lulled to sleep by the sound of insects buzzing in the darkness. They had dismissed from their minds forests filled with the wonderment of God, containing trees so tall they seemed to reach the clouds, and instead, they shuffled from pubs to cinemas, filling their bellies with alcohol and their minds with make-believe. They didn't know that tranquility was within their grasp. A short flight or a long drive would take them to a place where advertising didn't line the roads. Where air still tasted like air and where you could sit for hours amidst the fields of green...and feel safe.

Every week, they talked on the phone, and rarely a day went by without an email being exchanged, but Laura hadn't seen her mother in months. Too busy with work and with Toni, Laura had been remiss in her daughter duties, and she knew it. With her father deciding he liked the life of a fisherman more than that of a husband and a father, it had only ever been Laura and her mother, and Laura had no regrets. While she had complained about her mother's concern over her marital state or lack thereof, in her heart, Laura knew that her mother only wanted the best for her. So, in the wee hours of the morning, Laura picked up the phone and told her mum she was coming home for a visit.

Four hundred miles away, Eleanor hung up the receiver, slid her feet into her slippers and shuffled to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. Turning on her laptop, she opened her email account and began re-reading the dozens of messages she had received from Laura over the past several months. They spoke of a job she seemed to love and of boyfriends old and new, but those subjects seemed to be secondary to the one called Toni Vaughn. Although she had never met the woman, through Laura's words, Eleanor had come to know the elusive teacher, a woman wrongfully convicted and sentenced to hell, and it made her proud to know she had raised a daughter so willing to help someone so wronged. But as the emails kept coming, she began to wonder how long it would take Laura to realize what Eleanor already knew.

There had never been secrets between them. They only had each other, and with that came a trust that most parents would give their right arm for. Eleanor knew when her daughter had lost her virginity and to whom, and she knew about Laura's many boyfriends and all the failed relationships. She had heard the complaints, dried the tears and giggled at her daughter's stubbornness when it came to the male of the species. She also knew that until tonight, Laura had never asked to bring anyone home other than Abby, but Abby was Laura's closest friend. Toni Vaughn was not. She was something more, of that Eleanor was certain.

Laura was her pride and joy. Eleanor had raised a girl to be a woman the only way she knew how, and there had never been a day in her life when she wasn't proud that Laura was hers, and Eleanor was not about to start now. Other parents could turn their backs on their children, give them ultimatums or threaten their inheritance, but as far as Eleanor was concerned, they were idiots. Children are much too precious to be tossed aside simply because they want to live their lives.

Pushing aside the teacup, Eleanor opened a cabinet, got a glass and poured herself a small brandy. Going out the back door, she stood on the slate, looked up at the stars and smiled. Raising her glass to the sky, she silently thanked God for giving her such a wonderful child, finished her drink and then walked back inside.

"Why aren't you packed?"

"I can't bloody do this."

"Yes, you can."

"No, I can't," Toni said, sitting on the edge of the bed. "Laura, you're asking too much of me. You're pushing too hard."

Laura frowned. Toni was right. It had taken months to get Toni to take the tiniest of steps, and it had only been a few weeks since Laura had suggested they go to Scotland on holiday during the last break at Calloway before fall classes began. Sitting down next to Toni, she said, "I'm sorry."

"I know you mean well, but things like this are hard for me. I get so bloody scared."

"I lose sight of that sometimes," Laura said quietly. "You do so well around here and at work. I forget that you're still afraid of so much."

"I'm sorry."

"You've got nothing to be sorry about."

"Go without me. Okay?"

"Is that what you want?"

Hanging her head, Toni said, "Yeah. I think it's best."

"Then that's what I'll do, but I'll miss your company," Laura said, touching the back of Toni's hand.

As Laura walked from the room, Toni stared at the floor, unable to tell the woman that she'd miss her, too. When had Laura become so important? When did conversations over breakfast and dinner seem to make each day start and end so perfectly? When did pleasing someone else begin to matter?

Filling a travel mug with coffee, Laura tightened the lid and walked from the kitchen, but stopped short when she found Toni standing at the foot of the stairs with suitcase in hand.

Holding her breath, Laura asked softly, "Going somewhere?"

"Are you still planning to drive?"

"That was the plan."

"You...you still keep a paper sack in your handbag?"

"Never leave home without it."

"Well, then...you want some company?"

Although Laura had grown up in Stirling, after she had moved to England, her mother purchased a home in an area called Carron Bridge. Just north of Falkirk and south of Stirling, it offered a slightly quieter life in a country setting. Near enough to the cities that Eleanor could continue her duties as an estate agent, but far enough away that she could forget about work when she got home.

Since climbing into the car, Toni hadn't said a word. Preferring to just stare out the window and watch the world whiz by, it wasn't until they were two hours into the trip, when she finally spoke. "Does your mother know you're bringing a guest?"

Startled, Laura glanced at her passenger. "Yes, she knows."

"Does she know about me? I mean...the way I am?"

"I've told her a bit. She and I have never had many secrets, but I didn't give her all the details. I told her you had spent some time in prison, but you were released when evidence proved you innocent. I didn't tell her what they did to you. I just said you were shy around strangers, and you had some trust issues."

"That's putting it mildly."

"You're getting better."

"Around you."

"Well, she's just like me, only taller."

"Everyone's taller than you."

"Hey!"

"Just joking."