Chapter 70
After the fire, Ivy had never gone back to her father’s partner’s house.
She found herself there now. Unlike her own house, which she’d inherited from her father, Steve Neely’s place was—had been—a sprawling estate. Beautiful, worth seven figures, easy.
Eugene had been secretive about his work, as was to be expected.
Gene and Steve had spent the better part of their adult lives investigating the Riemann hypothesis, a way to map out all known prime numbers.
Solving the equation had widespread implications for everything from AI to cryptocurrency, to codebreaking, to financial markets.
The one million-dollar Clay Millennium Prize that was on permanent offer for the solution was a drop in the bucket, a mere hundred or thousand times less than the actual value. Governments, private investors, hedge funds, hell, even defense contractors would want the solution.
As Ivy pulled up to the burnt exterior of Steve Neely’s home, she closed her eyes. Thought about that night. As usual, her fingers started to ache where she’d burned herself.
Ivy had been visiting town after wrapping up her PhD when she’d gotten the desperate call from her father.
“Ivy—”
“Dad? Everything okay?”
“I need you to listen.”
Gene’s tone was all business. More so than usual. Ivy listened. Couldn’t believe what she was hearing. It was surreal. Like something out of a movie.
Two best friends, work colleagues, two of the smartest men on the planet, torn apart by the allure of money.
“I need you to come to me. I’m at Steve’s place. He—” There was a shout, the specific words indecipherable. When Gene spoke again, he did so in a mere whisper. “If anything happens to me, you need to save the work.”
“Dad? You’re scaring me.”
“Save the work, Ivy. Find Steve’s laptop. Please. It’s more important than either of us.”
That was the last time she’d heard his voice. So much had changed that night.
Everything had changed.
Ivy got out of the car, walked toward the front door. She’d only been here twice before. That night and once about three months earlier.
They’d been on their way home from dinner out—one of the rare occasions that Gene had taken time off work to hang out with her—when he’d said he needed to stop at his partner’s to drop something off.
Ivy had been in awe of Steve’s house, so much larger and fancier than theirs. She’d made a comment to this effect, and Gene had replied by saying that his partner was less risk averse. Steve had been an early crypto adopter, had made a shit ton of money.
The place was dark now, the night disguising the soot smears that marred the brick walls.
Ivy was on high alert. She looked upward. The windows had been boarded up with particle board. The house was silent—deathly silent.
Ivy reached for the door, not expecting to find it unlocked. Surprised that it was. She opened it a crack.
“Anyone here?”
No answer.
Ivy opened the door wider and put one foot inside. She remembered the house. Remembered the layout, even though the fire in the kitchen had been blazing at the time.
This was . . . different.
Ivy was so confused by the gray drywall in front of her, the three doors, pristine white, side by side, each with a large number written on them in Sharpie—one, two, three—that she didn’t even realize she’d stepped all the way in.
And when the door clicked closed behind her, following by a soft, mechanical whir of the digital lock engaging, Ivy knew that she’d made a mistake.
A fatal mistake.
“Hello, Ivy,” a voice came from a speaker embedded behind her. “I’m surprised that it took you so long to come here.”