The Circle

a second-screen message from Dan:
Please come to my office asap. Jared will cover for you
.
    She rushed there, and when she got to his door, Dan was standing, ready. His face
     seemed to show some satisfaction that she’d hurried. Dan closed the door and they
     sat down.
    “Mae, do you know what I want to talk about?”
    Was this a test to see if she would lie?
    “I’m sorry, I don’t,” she tried.
    Dan blinked slowly. “Mae. Last chance.”
    “Is it about last night?” she said. If he didn’t know about the police, she could
     make something else up, something else that had happened after hours.
    “It is. Mae, this is very serious stuff.”
    He knew. God, he knew. In some recess of her mind Mae realized that the Circle must
     have some web alert to notify them anytime a staff member was charged or questioned
     by the police. It only made sense.
    “But there were no charges,” she protested. “Marion cleared everything up.”
    “Marion is the owner of the shop?”
    “Yes.”
    “But Mae, you and I know that there was a crime committed, don’t we?”
    Mae had no idea what to say.
    “Mae, I’ll spare you. Did you know that a member of the Circle, Gary Katz, had placed
     a SeeChange camera at that beach?”
    Her stomach dropped into her shoe. “No, I didn’t.”
    “And the owner’s son, Walt, had set one up, too?”
    “No.”
    “Okay, first of all, that’s troubling in and of itself. You go kayakingsometimes, yes? I see on your profile that you’re a kayaker. Josiah and Denise say
     you had a good talk about this.”
    “I do go sometimes. It’s been a few months.”
    “But you’ve never thought to check SeeChange to see about water conditions?”
    “No. I should. But every time I go, it’s really a spur-of-the-moment thing. The beach
     is on my way home from my parents’ house so—”
    “And you were at your parents’ house yesterday?” Dan said, in a way that made clear
     that if she said yes, he would be even angrier.
    “I was. Just for dinner.”
    Dan stood now, and turned from Mae. She could hear his breathing, a series of exasperated
     bursts.
    Mae had the distinct sensation she would be fired any moment. Then she remembered
     Annie. Could Annie save her? Not this time.
    “Okay,” Dan said. “So you go home, missing any number of activities here, and when
     you drive back this way, you stop by the rental shop, after hours. Don’t tell me you
     didn’t know they were closed.”
    “I figured they were, but I just stopped to make sure.”
    “And when you saw a kayak outside the fence, you just decided to take it.”
    “Borrow it. I’m a member there.”
    “Have you seen the footage of this?” Dan asked.
    He turned on his wallscreen. Mae saw a clear, moonlight image of the beach from a
     wide-angle camera. The logline at the bottom of the screen indicated it had been taken
     at 10:14 p.m. “Don’t you think a camera like this would be useful to you?” Dan asked.
     “Water conditions at the very least?” He didn’t wait for a response. “Let’s see youhere.” He fast-forwarded a few seconds, and Mae saw her shadowy figure appear on the
     beach. Everything was very clear—her surprise at finding the kayak, her moments of
     deliberation and doubt, then her quick work of bringing the vessel to the water and
     paddling out of view.
    “Okay,” Dan said, “as you can see, it’s pretty obvious you knew you were doing something
     wrong. This is not the behavior of someone with a standing arrangement with Marge
     or whomever. I mean, I’m happy that you two colluded on your story and that you weren’t
     arrested, because that would have made your working here impossible. Felons don’t
     work at the Circle. But still, all of this makes me frankly sick to my stomach. Lies
     and aversions. It’s just astounding to even have to deal with this.”
    Again Mae had the distinct feeling, a vibration in the air that said she was being
     fired. But if she was being fired, Dan wouldn’t have spent this kind of time with
     her, would he? And would he fire someone Annie, who was far higher on the ladder,
     had hired? If she were to hear about her termination from anyone, it would be Annie
     herself. So Mae sat, hoping this was going somewhere else.
    “Now, what’s missing here?” he asked, pointing to the frozen image of Mae getting
     into the kayak.
    “I don’t know.”
    “You really don’t know?”
    “Permission to use the kayak?”
    “Sure,” he said curtly,