Between staying up all night to work on his initial sketches, while his memory was still fresh, and not wanting to return to the diner until at least a few were completed, three days passed between Bill's visit to Sheri's house and when he next returned to the diner.
Bill was excited to recognize Sheri working in the back of the seating area, her blonde hair standing out like a beacon, as he walked into the diner. But he grew concerned when he saw a very worried look cross her face when she spotted him heading to his table.
Before he even had a chance to open his menu, Sheri was walking quickly towards Bill, looking nervously over her shoulder as she approached him.
As she sat in the seat across the table from Bill, she said quietly, "I was wondering when you'd be back."
"Sorry if it took me a while," Bill said with a smile. "I wanted to make sure I got some of the sketches done that you wanted. I have three finished and three more that I'm going to finish, though I wasn't sure if you wanted me to bring them here..."
Sheri cut Bill off with, "Do you have some time to talk right now?"
Bill was worried by the look of concern on Sheri's face, but responded happily with, "Sure, is everything okay?"
Sheri's blue eyes fixed on Bill's, studying him. The mischief and playful twinkle was gone from her blue eyes, Bill noted, replaced with something focused and serious. A moment of silence hung between the two, stretching as Bill waited for Sheri's response. Finally, the young woman squeezed her eyes shut, opened them again, and proceeded to explain.
"Look, you seem like a really nice guy," Sheri began, "and I kind of like you. You seem decent."
"Well thank you," Bill started to say in response, before Sheri cut him off again.
"But listen, you can't hold this against me," Sheri pleaded. "I didn't know exactly what they were going to do. They didn't really tell me everything, just like I didn't tell them everything."
"What are you..." Bill began with some concern.
But Sheri spoke right over him again. "Listen to me!" she hissed, before lowering her voice again. "Please give me some credit for telling you this, and remember that I didn't know what they were going to do. My boyfriend, Joe, he set you up."
Bill was taken aback. "What do you mean..." Bill started to say, before Sheri once again, spoke over him.
"I told Joe what you told me about the videos," Sheri continued, "I told him you were trying to warn me. He told me he had heard you were in financing and renting that big cabin for the summer, and he figured you had a lot of money probably lying around the cabin to keep you comfortable for the summer. Otherwise, why would you come all the way out here?"
As Bill struggled to process what he was hearing, and guess where it was leading, Sheri continued. "Joe asked if I could come up with a way to lure you out of your cabin at a certain place and time. I told him about the drawing you did for me and I came up with the idea of asking you to do a nude sketch of me. Joe loved the idea. He said if you bothered to look into the videos, you had to at least be a little interested in me, attracted to me. He said you wouldn't be able to resist."
"Your drawings are really, really good, don't get me wrong," Sheri continued, "and I like them. But Joe was supposed to do something that first night I came over to your place and let you draw me naked. Only, I didn't realize he chickened out when he didn't immediately find any valuables, and didn't do anything other than go through some of your stuff that night. After, he asked me about the layout of the cabin and where you were keeping your stuff.
"That night you came over to my house, Joe and a couple of his friends went through your stuff. I was supposed to stall you after Joe left. He doesn't know that I watched you jack off or let you cum on me, I just sort of let it happen in the moment. But Joe and his friends didn't find anything in your cabin except your laptop."
"That's why Joe was in such a rush to leave," Bill said aloud with the realization.
"He was trying to meet up with his friends before they left your cabin," Sheri said, finishing the thought for Bill. "But when he got to your place, they said they hadn't found any cash.
"They asked me to come up with some way to figure out where you were stashing your money," Sheri continued, "But I refused. You seem like a nice enough guy and I don't want to be a part of this anymore, whatever they have planned. They were talking about maybe kidnapping you and making you get money out of an ATM, or trapping you the next time you come over to do some sketches of me. But I don't want any part of that."
Bill felt a chill run through him at the thought of being kidnapped by Joe and a bunch of teenage thugs. Bill was stunned, and reeling, but a thought occurred to him. "When was the last time you talked to Joe?" Bill asked.
"I talked to him this morning," Sheri responded, a serious look of concern on her face.
"About me?" Bill asked.
"About a lot of things," Sheri responded, "But yes, you too."
"What did he say?" Bill asked.
"He asked if you had given me my new batch of sketches," Sheri replied. "I told him that I hadn't seen you since the night at my place. I told him you usually come to the diner every morning, but it had been three days since the last time you were in."
"Thank you Sheri," Bill said, still dumbfounded from the news. Bill stood and walked to the front of the restaurant. Sheri tried to call after Bill, to ask if he wanted to talk about what happened, but Bill barely heard her.
On a hunch, Bill used the diner phone to call the non-emergency number for the police and asked if they could send a car by his cabin to check on the place. Then he hurriedly walked home, forgetting until he was most of the way back that he hadn't eaten breakfast at the diner like he planned.
As soon as he cleared the last rise before his rental cabin, Bill could see two police cars with their lights flashing. As he got closer, Bill recognize Joe sitting in the back of one of the cars.
"You the renter?" One of the policemen asked as Bill approached.
"Yeah," Bill responded, noting two other young men in the back of the other car.
"You call in the request for us to drive by your place?" the policeman asked.
"Yeah," Bill responded again, walking towards his open front door and peering inside. Nothing seemed amiss inside the cabin.
"We found these three young men inside, they tried to bolt when they saw our cruiser pull up," the policeman explained. "How'd you know they were in there?"
Bill could see the three young men all looking at him from inside the cop car. He thought for just a moment before responding, "I have some security controls on some of my stuff. One of the alarms went off."
The cop nodded. "Good thing for you," the policeman replied, "Looks like they were going through your things when we pulled up. You want to press charges?"
