OVERPASS

Though Dr. Carl is slowed by this brush with disaster, he doesn’t stop to help, rather calls 9-1-1 on his cell phone and drives on to his full schedule of improving people’s looks. Ray loses his life. Carl’s best friend, attorney Steve Ridgely, convinces him he did the right thing. Life goes on. At least Carl's life does. But when Carl drives by the accident site the next day, he’s stunned by a passenger who appears in the seat beside him. Ray Tubbs, in the flesh... almost. It’s Ray’s ghost who explains to Dr. Bates how he’s stuck on the interstate and feels he will only be released if Dr. Bates will visit Toni and express his regrets for having left that morning without kissing her goodbye, something he’s never done before. Irony, they both agree.

Carl’s not sure he’s up to this task. Actually, one of wife Karen’s complaints about the husband she’s now separated from is that Carl never would say he was sorry... for anything. And daughter Kat can’t even coax a favor from her father, so why should some ghost? Carl politely declines Ray's request, until the ghost explains how the accident really went down and how he could have saved himself by coming over into Carl’s lane but he sacrificed himself instead. The mission is set.

Accomplishing that mission becomes difficult when Carl finds out that there were others who actually did help Ray in his time of need. How could he follow through with the original story he and Ray had concocted -- that Ray had passed his regrets to stranger Carl in his dying breath? As his own business suffers, Carl tackles the task, but hits a brick wall when he encounters a coolness from Toni, who is a non-believer in anything spiritual, and also finds out that maybe Ray wasn’t exactly straight with him about the mission. Seems there was this woman Lucy who worked at Carney Bros.... and she and Ray... Well, needless to say, things aren't as they seemed. Convinced now that Carl’s been sent by Lucy, Toni gives him the boot... but something’s changed in Carl, for the better. He won't give up on this family.

With Steve’s help Carl figures a way to get on Toni’s good side when he uncovers the fact that Ray’s truck was a safety risk... and Ray’s death was most likely caused by the concrete company's negligence and its owner Clay Carney. Ray and Carl team up to sue the truck company, and a big-bucks, out-of-court settlement brings Toni around... to a final meeting with Ray’s ghost on the overpass and a chance for Ray to apologize in person before he moves on... and for Toni to believe.

But how is Carl left in all this? With a new slant on the value of time and sharing it with his loved ones... and on the road to a new lease on his own life.