On her way back to the institute, Rachels thoughts were revolving around the meat tree but even more about the behaviour of Eddie Heldens and Inspector Stevens.

They were hiding something, some terrible truth probably, which nobody should ever discover. There was something really wrong about this but now she was forced to let go of it and try to forget the things she had seen. Impossible.

The images of the dead animal surrounded by roots and the stench of the fleshy tree came up to her mind again and again.

Rachel steered the car to the side and turned off the engine. It was already late in the afternoon and she still had to drive about half the way.

She hadn't even left a piece of evidence except for the analysis records, but nothing to really prove that this meat tree ever existed, if Inspector Stevens and the other investigators should manage to remove it from the warehouse.

If they hadn't pulled it out of the basement floor yet, they would surely come back tomorrow morning with better equipment and then it would be gone. The only chance to find out what it was all about was by going back into the warehouse tonight. Rachel shivered.

She finally turned the car around and drove back to the area where the warehouse was located.

It might take some more hours to wait for the investigators to leave, so there was enough time to maybe eat for dinner somewhere and think about what she was about to do.

If she was unlucky, there would be someone on nightwatch at the building and if she got caught, there wouldn't be any good excuse for her to come back there in the middle of the night.

She was likely about to get in trouble but Rachel just wasn't able to let go of her thoughts about the meat tree. If there was anything to find out about it, it had to be done tonight.

There was a nice restaurant on the way and she decided to have at least something small for dinner even if her appetite wasn't really big now.