Chapter 72
The voice from the speaker was distorted. Whoever was talking was using some sort of modulator. Ivy turned around and tried to open the front door. It was locked. She pulled, but the thing didn’t budge.
“Only one way out, Ivy.”
Ivy’s entire body broke out in a cold sweat as she pulled even harder. All of the muscles in her hand and forearm ached.
“It won’t open,” the speaker informed her.
Ivy tried a third time, with both hands now.
“Turn around.”
Ivy gave up and did as she was asked.
Three doors—one, two, three. All locked with a familiar sleek black device. The same one she’d seen at the barns that had hosted the prisoner’s dilemma and the 100 prisoners problem.
“You recognize this, Ivy?”
Ivy wished she didn’t. Wished she was more like Aaron Treadman, oblivious to the permutation approach.
Looping. Wished she was more like Abby, too.
Abby with the simple life. Conversely, everything Ivy did was calculated and measured—always had been.
Even that night her father called, from inside this very house, her actions had been deliberate.
Heart-breaking, life-changing, but deliberate, nonetheless.
The three doors were from the Monty Hall problem, made famous on the 1963 television show Let’s Make a Deal.
“I knew you would,” the voice said, even though Ivy hadn’t spoken. “I’m going to be honest with you, I thought you’d come here sooner. But oh, well—you’re here now. Pick a door, Ivy.”
Ivy shook her head.
“Pick a door, Ivy, or they all die.”
“What?” Ivy gasped.
“You heard me. Pick a door or they all die.”
“Why are you—”
“Pick a door!” the voice bellowed.
Ivy whimpered.
A door . . . one door.
In the show, the contestant was given three doors to choose from. Behind two of them was a goat. The last, a new car. The doors, like the ones before her now, were numbered one, two, three. Two of which were prime numbers. One wasn’t.
“One,” Ivy said, choosing the only non-prime number of the three. Her voice cracked. “I pick door number one.”
There was a short pause, then she heard that familiar mechanical whir followed by a click. Door number two opened and Ivy gasped again.
It was the detective, Darnell Sacker.
He was gagged and bound, slumped on a stool, his back propped up against the drywall. The left side of his forehead was purple, a gash leaking blood into one closed eye.
“Why are you doing this?” Ivy said. She was trembling now.
“Because you have something I want.”
“What? Who are you?” Desperate, begging.
“I’ll answer after you play the game.”
“I don’t want to play your fucking games!”
Ivy’s eyes roamed the retrofitted space. Spotted another one of those shitty cameras mounted in the corner. And an air vent.
The walls were made of drywall, just like at the crime other scenes. No mud, no tape. The vent . . . Ivy knew exactly what was hooked up on the other side.
Why did I come inside? Why?
“You know the game, Ivy, and you know what comes next.”
She knew, all right.
“Would you like to switch doors or keep door number one, Dr. Reeves?”