Bob the Caretaker: House Rules - Paperback

Bob Andrews knows what happens when systems fail.

Years ago, as a young child welfare worker, Bob did everything right. He filed the forms. He followed the rules. He trusted the process. A little girl named Emma Cole died anyway.

Ten years later, Bob runs a halfway house in Pittsburgh with warmth, patience, and an almost supernatural ability to see what broken people need. To his residents, he is the rare authority figure who listens. He cooks breakfast. He remembers names. He gives second chances to people the world has already written off.

But Bob has another set of house rules.

Some people, he believes, can be helped. Others have been given every chance and have used each one to hurt
someone weaker. Those people go into what Bob privately calls "the basket." And once Bob decides someone belongs there, the official system no longer gets a vote.

As the house fills with residents trying to rebuild their lives, Bob's care begins to look less like mercy and more like possession. A suspicious resident notices patterns. A social worker starts asking questions. A young woman gathers evidence she is not sure anyone will believe. And the people Bob thinks he is protecting must decide whether safety bought at the cost of truth is safety at all.

Bob the Caretaker: House Rules is a dark psychological thriller about trauma, justice, control, and the terrifying distance between protecting people and owning them.