In Chicago, Illinois, six year old Emily Howland requires a kidney transplant imminently or will die from kidney failure. Her parents, Sarah and Kirk Howland, the latter who owns a successful car lot, are not appropriate matches. As such, Kirk unilaterally decides to go back to a life that he abandoned eight years ago in Portland, Oregon, a life about which Sarah knows nothing and about which Kirk does not plan on telling her. Then, he, under his real name of Mark Drummond, and his then girlfriend, Jamie Butler, had rented a single engine plane to fly from Portland to Las Vegas to elope, as three of their four parents disapproved of them getting married, largely due to class differences. Mark at the time was floundering in life trying to figure out what to do with no savings. Mark and Jamie ended up stealing $200,000 of Mrs. Butler's money with every intention of paying it back when they could.