<span style="color: #FF80FF"><span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="font-size: 150%; line-height: 116%;"><div style="text-align: center;">Lea Stevens</div></span></span></span><br/><div style="text-align: center;"><a class="postlink" href="http://i300.photobucket.com/albums/nn24/SociallyToxicBeauty/036e0d3a-b28c-47ec-b858-0eaea6c67e4d.jpg">[ img ]</a></div><br/><span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="font-size: 150%; line-height: 116%;"><span style="color: #FF80FF"><div style="text-align: center;">"Jazz"</div></span></span></span><br/><span style="color: #FF8000"><br/>"I'm not calm, Lea...I won't be a big help to Renea if I allow myself now to panic..." </span>Carlos replied as he reached out and grabbed his phone. He watched the videos again, but Lea averted her eyes not wishing to see it again at that moment. She didn't have a clear enough head to even try to analyze the videos at that particular moment.<br/><br/><span style="color: #FF8000">"Whoever made this videos he is a film fan, don't you think? Who would start to document a kidnapping from the early beginning others than commando OPs and documentary filmmakers? But no commando OP would include cuts to build up tension, that is a typical cinema feature. And there is a message hidden in those films...we don't want to hurt anyone, so we acted very carefully with chloroform, but we aren't shy to do it, if you force us out. I am more and more sure that it is someone who works with Ralph but more in a leeching way...not on the operative side,"</span>Carlos said, seemingly thinking more out loud than anything.<br/><br/>Lea frowned as she brought her gaze rather unwillingly to the videos,<span style="color: #FF80FF">"I don't know Carlos, anyone who knows how to play on people's emotions might film like that. They could be a film buff, but it could be just as well they simply know how to screw with people's heads. It's possible, but I don't know that it means anything right now. Tons of people nowadays love films."</span>She brushed some hair out of her face, the continued speaking,<span style="color: #FF80FF">"And why would they not want to hurt anyone if they were working with Ralph? It seems they'd likely be just as sadistic and twisted as him...Wait...what do their hands look like? Are they small or large? Gloved?" </span><br/><br/>If they could get a clearer look at the culprit's hands, maybe they could determine if the person was a man or woman. Not only that, but if it was a woman--then it was a possibility that she was the one who was scouting out the clubs to do preliminary targeting of victims for Ralph. They had assumed Ralph was just good at avoiding the police and plain clothes, but it could have also been that he had sent someone to look for the girls as possible victims to avoid being seen too often in one place. The police hadn't suspected a woman and so no one had looked out for a woman--it helped that a woman in a strip club, if dressed scantily enough, could just pass off as some possible stripper or prostitute walking through.<br/><br/>Lea was going to share her thoughts, but Carlos had already started to dial a number--Alfonzo's. He chatted with him for a few minutes before switching the phone to speaker so Lea could hear. What he had to say didn't surprise her, but it definitely still irritated her. Of course the Chief would call the dogs off if it meant protecting Ralph in some type of way. Carlos gave Alfonzo a task and hung up, while Lea tried to find her thoughts in her clouded mind.<br/><br/><span style="color: #FF80FF">"If the person in the videos is a woman, this might make this both easier and more difficult...A woman would have definitely made it a lot easier for Ralph to evade police and still commit his murders. No one thought there was an accomplice and certainly no one suspected there was a woman--I mean, if that is a woman filming,"</span>Lea said, though she seemed to get agitated with herself.<span style="color: #FF80FF"> "I don't know,"</span>she said frustratedly,<span style="color: #FF80FF">"I am just not cut out for this sort of shit anymore, Carlos. I'm a washed up, drugged out whore. I'm not a cop anymore. I should have never gotten into this--now Maria is fucked up, Renea and her kids are with god knows who being treated like god knows how. This isn't like the old days, this isn't us doing our jobs with clear heads--I'm more likely to make mistakes now than ever before and what's worse is the mistakes are going to wipe out a family. I want to find Renea, but I'm worried any step we make is going to royally fuck her. I can't...I can't see a good outcome in any of this."</span><br/><br/>Lea had been great at her job when she was still on the force, but she had lost her spark when she had fallen into her depression--and it hadn't gotten any better with drugs or her new "career." With the situation at hand, it was rather surprising that Lea was even able to come up with ideas at all. She felt, with the way she was now, she wouldn't be able to find peanut butter in a grocery store if she were asked to--much less solve Renea's kidnapping. She was tired, she was banged up, she was in pain physically and emotionally, and she was having a difficult time stringing her thoughts together. Carlos was clearly the one who still had a head on his shoulders, whereas Lea hadn't had one for many months on end now. He was asking her too much and yet she knew she should be able to give more. She felt stupid and used, and incredibly guilty.