“My memoir.” Linda felt detached but in the right way. She wasn’t helplessly angry right now or lost like a little child, she was simply in control and aware of it. She was conscious. It would take a couple of years of steady work to break old habits and explore the many, many ways her earlier life had left her damaged.

“It’s called Winning at Any Price: the Story of a Daughter and Mother. Catchy title, I think, especially since I’ll have my full birth name, Lindsey Vanessa Bartok Price, on it.”

“That’s blackmail.” Her mother leaned forward in spite of a restraining gesture from Alligator. “I’ll sue you and the publisher for everything.”

“Truth is truth.” Linda realized she felt powerful for the first time with her mother, that she had true control over the conversation. “It’s not blackmail because regardless of the outcome of the competency hearing, I’m going to publish this. Win or lose, I’m talking. You can’t silence me. You have nothing to offer me that I value.”

Her mother glared. “You’ll never see a penny of my money again and my will is explicit that you get nothing, ever.”

Linda said again, “You have nothing to offer me that I value.”

“I won’t let you ruin our family name.” There it was, at long last—a note of panic in her mother’s voice.

Linda thought, with surprised clarity, I’ll never look like her, not because of the surgeries, but because inside she’s ugly and I’m not. She would have to share that thought with Dr. Kirkland. Certainly, Dr. K already knew how much the loan of a laptop had meant to Linda.

When Linda said nothing, Ted Jeffers smoothly explained, “There’s no way of predicting how publishing a detailed memoir will affect the Price family name. But it might encourage other little girls who were tortured and abused in pursuit of beauty pageant crowns to speak out.”

Her mother looked at Alligator, who hurriedly said, “We’ll get an injunction.”

“What a pity, then, that just this morning I dropped off copies of the manuscript to the Herald—both the entertainment and financial editors, as well as posted copies to several publishers.”

Her mother went white. “If this isn’t blackmail, then what was the purpose of this meeting?”

“To prepare for the hearing,” Ted said, with a bland smile. “In the interests of disclosure, Linda is submitting this manuscript as proof that she is more than capable of completing a project while she holds down a job and maintains her own residence. In addition, it explains for the first time the mitigating circumstances on her unfortunate and deeply regretted suicide attempts, something no judge has ever heard. Her therapist—assigned initially by the last facility her mother committed her to—is also willing to speak on Linda’s behalf. We’re ready for your own psychiatrist’s evaluation and this morning—” He handed a paper across the table to Alligator. “This morning we requested the court go ahead and appoint its own evaluator.”