Page 100 of Dangerous Temptation
‘The data proved problematic, however,’ she confessed. ‘The algorithm I developed here didn’t accurately predict the fraudulent reporting of Case B.’
She pointed out the difference between the predicted and the actual values, offering up the limitations of the results freely. ‘I struggled with this until I realised that I needed to account for parallax.’
She moved to the next slide of her presentation and Alex’s mouth dropped open. It was a shot of Wolfe Lake.
‘It’s like when you look into water and see a shiny rock,’ she explained. ‘I could calculate the position of the rock, but that calculation assumes that sunlight is moving through air. If you turn around and consider the rock, it’s looking up to the sky through water. The two environments don’t jibe, even though the rock hasn’t moved.’
She was energetic now, walking right up to the professors’ table. She wanted them to understand. She wanted verification of her work.
Alex looked to them, wondering the same thing.
Was she right?
She directed a laser pointer at the screen. ‘I needed to combine both views. I needed to look through air and water. Or, in this case, I needed to determine the variance using both macroeconomic and microeconomic principles.’
With a flourish, she pulled up an advanced mathematical formula. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I give to you my findings on how to determine if a fund is achieving questionable results.’
One professor squinted while another ran numbers on his notes. A woman with her hair in a bun pointed a pen at the screen. ‘So this is from the microeconomic side of the pond, so to say.’
‘Yes, ma’am. Said simply, using this formula, investors can determine if their investment results in a stock or fund are “too good to be true”.’
‘Wait a minute,’ Caroline Woodward piped up from her seat. She raised her microphone. ‘Are you showing people how to play the market?’
The crowd started tittering.
That was stopped fast.
‘Security,’ the head of the committee snapped. ‘Please remove this person from the building.’
‘No,’ Elena said sharply.
Heads turned towards her.
She didn’t flinch. ‘In answer to Ms Woodward’s question, the answer is no. This is not a “how to” guide. Think of it as a mine detector, not the mine.’
Caroline gestured belligerently at the screen. ‘But couldn’t someone reverse engineer –’
‘Enough,’ the committee chairwoman said, rising to her feet. ‘Get this woman off of campus property.’
The reporter’s eyes narrowed behind her black-rimmed glasses. ‘This presentation is open to the public, and freedom of the press –’
‘Does not allow you to disrupt the proceedings. You were given the rules of participation, and you broke them.’ The chairwoman was radiating power in all her glory. She pointed at the door with the authority only a schoolmarm could pull off. ‘Out.’
The university cops took over from there. Standing over the fuming reporter, they waited impatiently for her to collect her things. When she stood, one took her arm. She ripped it out of his hold. She signalled to her cameraman to stay. When the security team realised she wasn’t alone, one of the bigger men cocked his head. The intimidation was enough to make the cameraman jump out of his chair to follow, too.
Alex felt the muscles of his face pulling in an unfamiliar direction, but then he caught the look of horror on Elena’s face. She was looking at the evaluation committee with trepidation. The urge to smile left him. They’d better not count this against her.
The crowd was still shifting and the committee looked discomposed.
Professor Walters adjusted his glasses. His hair was ruffled from where he’d tugged on it, and his cheeks were rosy. ‘So if I may summarise, Ms Bardot, you’re talking about determining fraudulency in real time – that is, Ponzi schemes?’
She lifted her chin. Everyone in the room knew who she was. ‘Yes, sir. I am.’
The crowd of reporters couldn’t help themselves. A gasp went up and pens began scratching fast against paper.
Alex dropped his head, his breath leaving his body. Holy. Shit. She’d been doing all this right under his nose.
‘Are there any more questions?’ the committee chairwoman asked.
