The Master Detective

She needed evidence
And the attic was the place to look. Wasn't that where all the detectives she'd seen and read about always went?
Caitlin mounted the stairs, picturing her stepfather up there plotting with his gang of cut¬throat murderers.
The room was dark, and she stood ready for something, someone, to jump out at her. But nothing stirred. When she bathed the room in light from the overhead fixture, she spied an old trunk. In it were only old magazines, yellowed with age. But what was that, way down... ?
A wooden box. Locked with some kind of weird puzzle. Caitlin fiddled with it and grinned when the lid popped open. Nothing but a bunch of papers inside.
She picked one up, smoothed it out, her eyes getting bigger and bigger. There was her name, written in bold ink. Caitlin Ashley Emerson had hit the jackpot.