Free Portrait of a Monster: Joran Van Der Sloot, a Murder in Peru, and the Natalee Holloway Mystery by Lisa Pulitzer, Cole Thompson

had definitely not slept on her side of the bed last night. The bedding was tucked in tight.
    The living arrangements in Room 7114 had been loose, flexible at best. Madison would often stay with a friend in another room, and other classmates would take naps, or even stay the night in her vacant spot. Natalee, Ruth, and Lee, however, had steadfastly maintained their occupancy in Room 7114.
    During their four days on the island, Natalee and Lee had slipped into a daily routine. They’d wake up, have a morning cocktail and then hit the beach around 10:00 A.M. to swim and lay in the sun. If they weren’t taking an afternoon trip, they’d lunch at the pool. At 5:00 P.M. , they would return to the room to nap for an hour before getting ready to go out to eat. After dinner, the bar hopping began.
    At five feet four, and weighing 110 pounds, Natalee didn’t have the same tolerance for alcohol that some of the other teens did. That Saturday, Lee had become concerned when the petite blonde had had one too many and asked another Mountain Brook teen to escort her back to the room to sleep it off. But despite this embarrassing incident, Natalee was drinking Red Fires, an over-proof Cuba libre made with Bacardi 151 and diet Coke, at dinner that Sunday night. Again, she had seemed unsteady and friends told her to slow down. She ordered several more cocktails at Carlos’n Charlie’s. But Ruth thought that she had looked sober and in control when she saw her standing at the bar talking to Joran.
    Natalee was most likely grabbing breakfast and would be back soon to pack up her suitcase. She was an amazingly responsible friend.
    Lately, she had been telling Ruth about her dream of becoming a doctor. Most of the other gals in the graduating class seemed preoccupied with which sorority they would pledge. The last few evenings, she’d stayed up late talking with Ruth about how excited she was to be going to the University of Alabama.
    Natalee’s family had been elated when they learned she had received a full academic scholarship to the university, where she was planning to enroll in the pre-med program in the fall. She had made plans to share a dorm room at the Tuscaloosa campus with another Mountain Brook classmate. She promised Ruth she would visit her at her college.
    Ruth and Lee showered and finished packing, but by 9:00 A.M. there was still no sign of Natalee. When Madison returned from her friend’s room, they told her they had not seen Natalee since the night before at the bar. Did she know where she was?
    Madison had left Carlos’n Charlie’s with Ruth and hadn’t seen Natalee since. Pulling their friend’s purple duffel bag from the closet, Madison and another friend, Holly Brown, who was staying in an adjoining room, packed up Natalee’s belongings so that she would be ready when she returned for her bag. If she missed her flight, her mother was going to be mad, the friends joked. They could only imagine Natalee’s mother’s reaction if her daughter missed her flight because she was still basking on the sun-soaked Palm Beach on Aruba.
    The first group of students was catching a 1:00 P.M. flight back to the U.S. and was already gathering in the lobby for the bus to the airport.
    “Where in the world could she be?” Ruth asked. “This is so unlike Natalee.”
    Convinced she had spent the night with some of their friends on the trip, Lee and Ruth began calling other rooms before walking around the hotel knocking on the doors of their fellow students. No one had seen Natalee since the night before at Carlos’n Charlie’s.
    Lee began to panic and she started to cry. The last time she had seen her friend, they had shared the dance floor at Carlos’n Charlie’s eight hours earlier. The two had gone crazy, rocking out to the eighties classics. Whenever the DJ played a song by Lynyrd Skynyrd, Natalee’s favorite band, she would go berserk. “Sweet Home Alabama” was the DJ’s top pick of the night.
    Natalee was a