My Dreamy Old Husband
Chapter 872

The biggest concern that Linus had was searching for the person who altered the program for the dog walking route.

Although it was not rocket science, all that was needed for several parameters to be reset. However, in order to do that, basic technical skills for running computer programs were still needed as the person would need to login and search for the correct program to do so—something that a child who struggled to add and subtract complex numbers could do.

Moreover, not everyone had access to Nicholas’ controls. One needed to log in with his administrator password to adjust the functions and moreover, the perpetrator even deleted all the logs recording the changes made.

Nobody knew how Nicholas’ dog walking route had been tampered with.

They shot a glance at the three children playing in the mud and broke out in cold sweat.

When Stanley heard about the news, he completely lost his composure. “This is the third time! The third f*cking time! What has my kid done to deserve your treatment? You are all animals—no, worse than that!”

His furkid had been merely minding its own business, but both Faye and the Mitchells manipulated the dog to hurt others. Not only did Carmen have the nerve to frame Judge for attacking children, Sophia even made the husky model at her shop to boost the sales of her dog collars and chains. Only God knew how much revenue Judge brought in for her and all he received for his hard work was a pat on his head—and nothing else. This is too much!

To quell Stanley's incessant rant, the children’s fathers conducted a search for the black money from the little mob’s underground business and redistributed it—Judge took half the share as he was rightly deserving of it while the other half was evenly shared by the three musketeers.

Carmen, who was feeling unjustified, whipped out her little book where she had recorded the dog's performance. The husky was duly paid with pets that he received on his head and the occurrence of his tail wagging. She raised her fingers and counted his payout—each of them as per the pay ratio and precise to the decimal point. The salary she paid Judge was fair—no more, no less!

After that, Judge was fired from her company and he was not allowed to mingle with them anymore.

Stanley left with his dog's pay and brought him to his beach villa. I'm angry! I'm not coming back! With a cold case being solved, it meant that her dog petting empire was ruined and her secret base was exposed. She was furious and even declined to drink her milk until Cooper dug up about 200 in loose change and told her that Stan had returned it out of guilt. She counted the amount and only fell asleep after she was satisfied.

After seeing that Carmen had fallen asleep, Sophia gently exited the room and saw that Linus was still studying Nicholas and Shae.

It had perplexed him to learn that all of the logs had been eradicated and the robots’ dog walking routes were changed. Even after much observation, he failed to discover the perpetrator.

Cooper also took the matter seriously and personally investigated it.

Linus had hacked Nicholas using a backdoor method to monitor Sophia at her residence many years ago, but Cooper had since blocked that access.

However, as Cooper still held the passcode to it, the access was not temporarily removed. It was only inactive and served as a folder for memory backups.

He had almost forgotten about the backup folder and now that he did, he immediately retrieved the files from there and discovered the log change. Indeed, someone had logged in with Linus’ account and password to alter the parameters of the dog walking route before completely removing their trace. It was such a pity that the perpetrator was unaware of the backup function.

The backup had a video recording of the perpetrator—it was Carmen with her lollipop dangling from the corner of her mouth, wearing the expression of a seasoned operator as she adeptly changed Nicholas’ parameters.

Linus had enjoyed having Carmen's company when he did maintenance work on Nicholas and Shae. He even demonstrated to her how he did it, thinking that she was too young to grasp what it was all about. Little was he aware that she had secretly learned all of his methods, altered the dog walking program on her own, led the dogs to her kindergarten, and ultimately built her dog petting business. What she never expected was her perfect crime to be exposed.

Carmen had roughly known that the days of her illegal venture were numbered since day one, so she made as much as she could on a daily basis. In the imminent event that she was caught, she could at least play dumb and get out of trouble scot-free.

She had almost escaped unscathed with the incidents of Judge biting children and her beating Albert up, but a little girl like her had missed out on one important loophole to her flawed plan. Sophia felt as if she was beginning to know her daughter all over again. Beneath Carmen's sweet, innocent looks, she was already a tyrant who exploited her employees. Imagine what she would be capable of when she grows up!

On the other hand, Cooper felt like Christopher Columbus when he first discovered America and developed a newfound admiration for his vicious little granddaughter. Not bad; she takes after me! Now that the mystery had been resolved, Sophia saw that Michael loitered in front of her house. He looked like he had something to tell her, but was hesitant to do so. He paced back and forth in front of Villa No. 2 as his shadow blended with and departed from the shade under the trees. The scent of tobacco filled the air around him.

Sophia had never recalled seeing Michael smoke in front of her and never knew that he maintained that habit.

Donning her sleeping robe, she went out the door. As she arrived at the trees not far from her garden, there were mosquitoes flying around. The sweet, captivating scent of her fragrance found its way to him with the help of the evening breeze, causing him to finally stop in his tracks before he walked to her with his head hung low.

The both of them faced each other, but said nothing. He had a lot on his mind, but lacked the courage to voice his thoughts.

Finally, Sophia broke the silence by raising her hand and slapping his cheek, leaving a fresh handprint on his cheek.

Michael felt a sting on his cheek, but he did not react. Instead, he lowered his head in shame and replied with guilt, “I'm sorry; it is my fault that I failed to protect Carmen and you. I have failed as a father and a husband.”

He considered that he failed as a father when Carmen was almost bullied in school. If it had not been for his own negligence, Sophia could have avoided being hurt for the second time and would not be depressed. He deserved the slap from Sophia!

Sophia frowned and asked, “What's wrong with you? I was merely killing that mosquito on your face.” She then opened her palm to reveal the disfigured carcass of a mosquito buried in the messy puddle of Michael's blood.

A stunned Michael fell into silence.

Following that, they both sat down on a long bench where Sophia took her insect repellent to spray on his face. His mind was clouded by his numerous thoughts and woes that he was oblivious to the mosquito bite on his face—where a bump had begun to rise from that bite.

Splatter! Sophia attentively sprayed and rubbed the repellent on Michael's face before noticing several more bumps across his body. “Look at you—there are many mosquitoes flying around us. What are you doing out here and getting yourself bitten by them? There are mosquitoes and you never killed them yourself. Look here... and here... as well as here—there are bumps all over!”

As she spoke, she pinched his bumps, leaving the marks of a cross.

Michael gazed at her while she grumbled and reminisced about the past. After a long pause, he finally summoned the courage to speak and asked with apprehension after the lump in his throat moved.

“Sophia... Did you find out what happened that time?”