After thirteen years away, Thomas returns to Tidewater to attend the funeral of his beloved grandfather, Everett, and reopens a long-running family feud when he suspects his stepfather of stealing and selling a missing family heirloom -- a letter from Abraham Lincoln.

Thomas is in Chinatown with Rick and T.C. celebrating his upcoming fortieth birthday, but he has little to celebrate when he loses his lucky $2 bill that his Grandpa gave him as a boy. While looking for it, he meets a beautiful woman who may cost him not just his lucky bill, but his heart -- and possibly his life.

Thomas lies hospitalized in a coma, caught between life and death, after being shot; as his friends and family attempt to pull him out of the limbo in which he is trapped, Thomas has an out-of-body experience in which he sees himself in heaven, guided by Mac; Thomas recovers physically from the gunshot wound in time, but finds it hard to face life again; although three of the criminals who almost killed him are already dead, one is still free.

Thomas ponders his future while paying a visit to his family in Virginia, where he unexpectedly meets his grandfather and considers an offer to be reinstated to the Navy; Thomas returns to Hawaii to ascertain whether former girlfriend Linda Lee Ellison is being stalked; Rick prepares for his wedding to Cleo; Thomas and Linda renew their relationship as he searches for her stalker; Thomas becomes increasingly certain that his daughter Lily may still be alive.