The professor, a woman, three-quarter turned to the camera, was saying, “Let’s say that the probability of a first-year student of having an STI is 5 percent.”
She wrote on the lectern, her words magically appearing on the board behind her.
“Now, let’s say you were a bit... concerned after a particularly eventful weekend. You decide to get tested. The test isn’t perfect—they rarely are. If you have an STI, it’s pretty accurate—95 percent of the time, it will come back positive. But if you don’t actually have an STI, the false positive rate is 10 percent.”
The class chuckled.
“I don’t get it,” Vaughn admitted. “What’s the link?”
“They’re calling her the Bae-sian Prof.”
“The what?”
“Bae-sian Prof.”
“No, I heard you—what does it mean?”
Darnell pulled up the comments. There were hundreds of them.
“Looks like she was teaching Bayesian statistics. And, before you ask, I have no idea what that is. But‘bae’means, like, girlfriend or something in millennial speak.”
Vaughn frowned.
“Cute. What does this have to do with the barn? The gas?”
“Dunno. Searched for math, prime numbers, game show, New Jersey, and this popped up.” Darnell shrugged. “Maybe she knows what the hell those boxes are all about.”
“Got a name?”
Darnell scrolled.
“Dr.Ivy Reeves—math prof at Princeton.” Princeton... this was getting more interesting. The idea of visiting someone at the university who might have a clue what the numbers meant had already crossed Vaughn’s mind. But with everything going on—Dr.McGill and the gas canisters, searching Aaron Treadman’s apartment, and Dr.Button at the morgue—it had slipped from his thoughts. “Wanna go have a chat with Dr.Reeves?”
“Why not? We can drop the laptop off with Bowes on the way.” Vaughn set his full mug down. “And we can also pick up some real coffee.”
“What do you mean? What’s wrong with my coffee?”
“Tastes about as good as your pajamas look.”
This, Darnell chuckled at.
?Chapter 25
Ivy was flusteredwhen she entered her office, more so when she saw that Tristan was seated behind his desk. She wanted to be alone.
“Dr.Reeves? You alright?”
“Yeah.”
Her head hurt. Felt two sizes too big.
“Zeke’s an asshole,” Tristan said. “He’s unpredictable.”
Ivy nodded.
“You talk to Dr.Moorehead about him?”
“Yeah.”
