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D oreen luckily dodged whatever Buck had reached for and then tossed at her. She stepped out into the hallway and slammed the door shut behind her, as something—maybe a shoe—hit hard against the door.

Two women, walking down the hallway, noted the room number, and chuckled. “At least you got out. He hit the last lady who went in there.”

Doreen shook her head. “Wow, no wonder he’s not popular.”

The two older ladies laughed. “You’ve got to keep your distance from him. He’s got gropey hands.”

“That’s not good,” Doreen said. “You should be safe in this place.”

“We should be, and now that he’s in rough shape, we are safe. Before, when he could get around better, not so much. I actually left Riverdale for a bit but had to return because I just couldn’t handle being on my own. However, I came back under the condition that I had nothing to do with him and that I was at the opposite end of the home.”

“And yet you still have to go past his room,” Doreen noted.

“I can now because he can’t move very quickly anymore. Regardless he would persist and persist and persist.”

“I hope nobody gives in to him,” Doreen noted, frowning at the women. “That’s abuse, pure and simple.”

“The family donates a lot to Riverdale, so I don’t think anybody here is in a position to complain about his behavior.”

Doreen just stared at them and finally nodded.

One of the women added, “It’s just a bad deal for a lot of people.”

Doreen frowned. “But still, you shouldn’t have to deal with that. Neither should the staff, for that matter.”

The women smiled. “Thank you, dear, for caring, but you can’t stop it by words alone.”

Doreen winced and nodded. “You’re right.” Then something else hit the door.

The two women laughed. “The fact that he’s still throwing a temper tantrum is also a delight,” said one of the women.

The other one also seemed delighted, as she noted, “He does this all the time, and we’re always so sad when somebody can’t quite avoid him. But now that he’s incapacitated to the point that he can’t run the hallways as he used to do, it’s a whole lot better in here. We’ll stay in Riverdale now just because he can’t bother us as much as he used to do.”

“What exactly did he do?” Doreen asked in shock.

“Chase us down the hallway, chase us into our rooms. If we didn’t make it there in time to lock him out, we had to call for help multiple times. I don’t know if everybody escaped him though,” the one woman shared, turning to look at her companion.

The other woman winced. “I don’t know either, but heaven help them if they didn’t.”

“And was he that… active , even if he was rejected?”

“Yes, he was,” they declared shortly. “He either blackmailed people, or—” They looked at each other and stopped.

Doreen asked cautiously, “Or?”

“Some of the people here don’t have a ton of money,” one woman explained. “So I think there may have been some financial arrangements made.”

Doreen sighed. “There’s no way to say this nicely, but I guess men are still being men, aren’t they?” At that, one of the women laughed. “That is one of the things we really struggled with ourselves when we moved in because we thought for sure that was not a thing now. Yet apparently it’s not only still a thing but it’s a big thing.”

Doreen winced and nodded. “Well, ladies, thank you very much for telling me.”

“No problem, and I can tell you that none of the people out front will be honest with you about him.”

“So, what then? Does he just stay in his room until they let him out?”

“Oh, he’s not locked in. And, if we tell them when we go down there that he was throwing things at you, they just threaten to lock him in, but nothing would really happen.”

“I suppose at some point in time he’s considered dangerous, hopefully?”

“ Nah . I don’t see it happening. I think he puts too much money into Riverdale,” one of the women stated. “He is dangerous, but he always has been. Now he’s mostly just a pain in my backside.”

And, with that, still laughing and knowing that their laughter was loud enough that Buck could hear them, they walked down the hallway, almost singing. As Doreen stared at the door, another object hit the door hard. Maybe he got angrier because he couldn’t even get out of his room to do more.

She hurried down to the front door and outside. She caught sight of the receptionist, who had a smug look on her face. When she stopped and stared, the woman wiped the smile off her face and buried her head, picking up the phone, trying to make it look as if she had no clue what was going on. For the first time Doreen realized that maybe Tabitha had a whole lot more going on here than others realized.

As soon as Doreen got back home again, she phoned Sandra and asked, “Do you know Tabitha from the Riverdale home?”

“Of course I do. She’s my cousin.”

“ Right , that makes total sense.”

“In what way does that make sense?” Sandra asked.

“Something about a look on her face.”

“If she let you in to see Buck, you can bet she was smirking in the hallway.”

“And why is that?”

“She hates him with a passion.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really,” Sandra confirmed, “but then I don’t know who doesn’t.” And, with that, she disconnected.