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Chapter38
LANDON
“Aria?” he exclaimed.
He didn’t know how she’d gotten here from Italy, but his niece was a sight for sore eyes.
The kid ran toward him. Her backpack swayed from side to side. She moved like an Olympic sprinter, then threw herself into the air like she was going for a long jump record.
He scrambled to flip his guitar to his back and caught her as Bess and Tomás emerged from behind the curtain.
He embraced the little girl and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “What are you doing here? You should be in Italy.”
“We had to come back, Uncle Landy.”
“Why?” he asked, turning to his foster parents.
“Because you need us, honey,” Bess answered.
Tomás wrapped his arm around Bess. “We care about you and Harper, and we uncovered something that might help her.”
What could they have uncovered?
Before he could ask, Aria peered into the audience and shielded her eyes. “Hey, Ms. Malone, special helper lady, are you coming?”
Special helper lady?
And just like that, Madelyn walked down the aisle. “Hello, Aria, dear. Nice to see you, Bess and Tomás. I hope you had a pleasant flight to Denver.”
Madelyn was here. He wasn’t crazy.
He turned to his niece. “Why did you call her special helper lady?”
“She comes into my class sometimes. Usually, this nice old lady called Mrs. Bergen helps my teacher. But a few times, Ms. Malone has come in.”
“It’s a community outreach partnership with Whitmore and Denver businesses. I’ve filled in a few times for my friend Harriett.”
He didn’t care if she was filling in for the Queen of England. He had no idea she’d been doing that. “You never mentioned any special helpers, Aria.”
She gave him an Aria-special shoulder shrug. “I’m busy, Uncle Landy. I’m in second grade.”
“Okay.” He pegged Madelyn with his gaze. “You could have said something.”
“I’m busy, Uncle Landy. I’m a nanny matchmaker,” the smirking woman tossed back, channeling the Aria shrug.
God help him!
“Little lady, if you’ve got proof that Vance Vibe is stealing other artists’ music, we need to see it,” Damien said. Except, he’d lost the southern drawl. He tugged at his nose, and…holy hell…he popped the sucker clean off.
“What is that?” Aria exclaimed. “You’ve got two noses, mister!”
“It’s a state-of-the-art prosthetic,” the man replied. “I use them when I go undercover.”
Undercover?
“Who are you, and what can you do about Vance Vibe?” he asked.
Before he could utter another word, Donna whipped the giant Dolly Parton wig clean off her head and revealed silver hair twisted into a low bun. “We can do quite a bit,” she answered without a trace of her buttery southern accent.
