Synopsis of the movie: After the murder of two women police officer Stone (played by Michael Nader) is convinced that the famous artist Mikael Gant (played by Arnold Vosloo) is involved. But his superiors fear problems with the artist's lawyers, and so decide to send Stone's ex-wife Hannah undercover into the lion's den. Soon, Hannah is hypnotized by the charismatic young artist and falls in love with him. Her ex-husband meanwhile tries to convict Gant. But there is another suspect on the list, a man who had worked for Gant years ago, and it looks as if officer Stone is just about to finish his carreer with his frustrated hunt after the wrong man. Last moment, the forensic's expert discovers a clue, that Gant is in fact the killer, and Stone arrives just in time to save Hannah from being murdered. In the end, she shoots him. THIS FANFICTION sets in before the final events of the movie: before Hannah goes back to Gant and he tries to kill her! The year is 1993!
You are my pearl in a world of dirt
I will be yours forever
You are my flame, my heat, my spark
Like a fire in a world so dark
You are my pearl in a world of dirt
This love cannot be measured
You're my escape from a world of hurt. (Beyond the Black, "Pearl")
Chapter 1
Huge trees shaded the flat house near the Keawaeli Bay, Hawaii. The modern steel and glass architecture almost hid under the innocence of nature – just like his new owner was hiding. Mikael had bought the home five months ago, shortly after he had left Los Angeles in haste. He had wanted to leave this glamorous, but cold and pretentious city with its bad memories as far behind as possible.
The elegant chisel scratched over the surface of the marble block, deepening a small sinus shaped ridge. Back and forth, back and forth – it was the frantic movement of a prisoner trying to dig his way out of immurement. Dust and little splinters flew, while tiny bloody rivulets colored the immaculate white of the stone.
Mikael didn't care. He was working on this project for over a day now. As usual, when he was in the middle of the creation process, he got obsessed, flooded with Adrenalin, which kept him working without sleep, food, or drink. He did not even feel the pain of his lacerated hands. He felt nothing but the urge to finish this creation! What was pain anyway, agony, death? Nothing new came into life without pain and destruction, nothing truly great without the death of anything. Nature didn't give up its familiar shapes that easily. They had to be raped from her, the old smashed by force, to reveal the true beauty! To get ready to be transformed into something new, into perfection!
The tool clanked to the ground. He had seen perfection, touched it! His hands clutched around the edges of the artwork. It was cold. It was marble, not Hannah's beautiful body with the velvet-like skin. It was far from being perfect!
With a groan of exhaustion, Mikael sank to the ground, in vain trying to steady himself against the statue. He gasped, fought against the suddenly overwhelming dizziness accompanying the blood pulsing in his ears. His glance fell on his image, mirrored by the video installation. He remembered now having forgotten to switch it off. The screen showed a lean, ghostlike face; its paleness heightened by the white dust; eyes underlined by broad dark rings of tiredness and traces of blood searching their way down his left cheek.
In a sudden spike of rage, Mikael grabbed the chisel and threw it into the screen. Glass shattered, electric sizzling hissed through the studio. A moment later, the lights went out. No, he never had possessed perfection; the less he had possessed HER. She had lied to him, betrayed him, used him. She had been nothing more than a police detective on a case. Now his touchy ego and pride were mortally wounded, and he wasn't sure if he could ever recover and able to do artwork again.
…
Not so far away, in an older house that looked as if it had survived through many storms, Crystal and her ex-and-not-quite-again husband Norman ate dinner. Norman, whose upper half of the body just vanished behind some papers, was a tall, bearded man, giving the cliché of the environmentalist he was. Crystal, however, with her delicate features and light hair, seemed to belong anywhere but in the wilderness. Nonetheless, eco-activism had brought them together – and apart in the end. Now they were making a second try here. She was not sure if it worked, though. To be honest, she was less sure with every passing day.
Lost in her thoughts, the young woman stirred in her Minestrone. Of course, it had been her idea to give their relationship a second chance! Norman had consented without much pondering, just as if musings about this subject would draw him away all too long from his activities for the environment. Crystal felt bad thinking this. Was this selfish of her? She knew how vital Norman's work was, didn't she? If there would be just a small place in between the work and fights for the two of them!
She sighed and her gaze wandered to the window, through which she could observe the sunset over the sea. A wonderful sight. Heaven and earth seemed to melt into something new, a state in between, plunged into orange, yellow, and gold…
"Norman?"
"Yes, Darling?" he answered without taking the eyes from the papers.
"What do you think about a little walk on the beach?"
"I would love to…." A long pause, not because he thought the subject over, but because he had found something in the papers needing all his interest. "However… you know, we have this meeting tomorrow with the mayor."
"There's always a meeting or something!" She heard that she sounded angrier than intended.
At least, Norman looked up now.
"You're not fair, Crystal. If we don't do anything, this airport is built and the biotope of the whole area will be gone forever! Don't be that grumpy. I don't do this for me, you know that!"
She sighed silently and occupied herself with her meal again. It was of no use. It never had been. She shoved the dish back and stared outside again. If they just had the time to watch the sunset together!
On the other hand, maybe she was expecting too much. 'Look at your friends,', she tried to convince herself. 'Kate, who is already divorced twice and now, sits alone with two little kids. Or Margie, who falls from one abusive relationship into the next one. Or Rachel, whose husband went off with all her money.' No, she had no reason to complain, had she?
Crystal stood up and started to remove the dishes and cups from the table. 'So why can't I just be content and happy?' She sensed frustration and anger build inside her and hurried to get the household duties done. Filling the dishwasher at least kept her mind busy. Norman was on his way to the computer; she heard his steps on the staircase to the upper floor. For sure, he would stay there until midnight at least, for tomorrow was the important meeting, and he had to finish his speech, brief his comrades…
"Love you, honey!" she heard before he closed the door.
"Love you too," she answered.
When she had finished the work in the kitchen, the sun had set. She went up to the little roof garden, nonetheless. Now the moon's silvery band glittered on the sea. It was also beautiful to watch. It spread some mysterious aura, reminding her of the fairytales of her childhood. It was still very warm, and the soft breezes of the wind like a bodiless caressing. Crystal closed her eyes and finally smiled. Tomorrow, it would be a better day. When Norman's meeting was over! They could go on a little picnic….
…
In the early afternoon, Mikael sat in his high-tech designer kitchen and prepared breakfast. He had slept until 11 AM in his studio, and then he had started to clean up. When the periods of obsession where he did not pay attention to anything but the creative process, were over, he felt disgusted regarding all the uncleanliness. He put everything in order in the studio; then he spent nearly an hour in the bathroom.
Now everything was shiny and orderly – except his mood. His manager had called him again and pestered about new works and an exhibition he had planned in New York. Why on earth, this ignorant couldn't understand that creating artwork was unlike producing hamburgers in a fast-food restaurant?! You could not just command, and it popped out! In addition, right now, he was in a crisis for weeks.
Maybe, Mikael mused, he should change the material again. Stone didn't seem to be very responsive… His thoughts circled around perfection, destruction, and decay again, while he poured the milk into the cereal bowl. A French artist had recently made video experiments in recreating famous still-life paintings with real objects, and then he had filmed the growing decay of them. Interesting approach, but not quite the expression of what Mikael searched to do. He didn't want to stop there, showing the loss of beauty. He wanted to show the phoenix rising from the ashes again, the new thing, the other thing! The circle of life…
The doorbell rang, and Mikael put his tools aside to look, promising himself to have a fence and a CCTV installed as he had in his other homes. He did not feel like dealing with any disturbances and annoyances!
When he opened, his eyes fell on a young woman with undoubtedly appealing shape and features but displaying everything that blatantly it would not even hold any interest for him, if he hadn't been in the mood he was.
"Yes? How may I help you, Miss?"
"Mister Gant, I heard you moved in recently. Uh, my name is Janet."
She smiled and moved in a way she thought perhaps sexy. "I'm a huge fan of your artwork, you must know!"
He supposed she didn't even know what art was.
"…And I just wanted to say, if you require a model, I live nearby, so to speak!" A little giggle. She threw her hair back, and her earrings clanked. "I have some experience in the business and -"
"I do not need any models at this point, Miss Janet."
"Oh! That's… a pity."
"If you would excuse me now." Mikael closed the door in front of her without waiting for an answer.
No, he did not feel up to disturbances, especially by women. Before the huge disappointment of Hannah, women had a very stimulating effect on him. Now, however, the only effect was that they drew his memory back to her and her lies! He pressed his lips together and walked around the marble statue he had finished last night. It replicated parts from several famous antique statues, but he had rearranged the single elements to a new entity. There was an arm from the 'River Nile' of the Roman Trevi fountain; there was part of the head of a Bernini-Apollon. The best and significant parts merged into something intriguing and perhaps shocking. The work was far from being over, though. He wanted to blend several parts of the statue with metal, and then set the corrosion process into work.
With a sigh of frustration, he stopped working. It was 2 in the morning. He had planned driving to the city that day, to pick up the new tools he had ordered in a shop. So he could have some coffee now and something to eat, a cold shower of course, and then hit the road.
