Genes/A Futuristic Thriller (ePub)

On June 1, 2206, Kiera gave birth to Aldis Jake, the Hunt-Morgennas' second child. A young nurse sees him in the nursery and tells a colleague that she wants to steal him. Morgetta tells Layla Orgode to back off-the baby's parents are Aldis Morgenna and Kiera Hunt, well-known private investigators. But when the Regional Governor's premature infant is taken from a private birthing center where Layla used to work, Morgetta contacts Kiera and suggests her friend is behind the kidnapping. Using the information she provides, Aldis is able to retrieve the baby without incident. Layla is arrested, her accomplice still at large.

Aldis feels a strange kinship toward Layla, and Kiera does a background check but can't find anything about Layla's early years. Later, Layla tells Kiera that she legally changed her name and appearance to hide from an abusive boyfriend, who had beat their infant daughter to death. A new search for "Lila Gadsden" leads to Almeera Washak Gadsden, Lila's mother, born on the Yomba Reservation in 2158. A DNA test confirms that Almeera is Aldis' and Joss Thundercloud's half-sister.

Aldis and Kiera travel to Yuma to visit Lila in prison; when they leave, they are approached by an old man who mistakes Aldis for his birth father. He takes them to see Jagger Lindstrohm, disabled from an accident on the Cuechan Reservation. Benita, Jagger's spouse, gives Aldis his father's old handheld containing photos of Jagger's first spouse-Aldis' mother, Sofia Morgenna. Aldis prods Jagger about his late mother's origins. Lindstrohm struggles to remember but eventually reveals where she came from, then confesses why he abandoned Aldis after his birth, and the eight Native American women he subsequently impregnated.

After they return home, Aldis begins a quest to not only find out about Sofia and the Morgenna family, but also the half-siblings that resulted from Lindstrohm's profligacy.