The Petticoat Gang (Foley & Rose Book 4)

Book summary

In "The Petticoat Gang," best friends Amber, Ebony, and Anna embark on a daring journey across Australia's heartland, aiming to escape their tragic past and secure a financially stable future. Their audacious plan involves robbing banks in Alice Springs and resorting to deadly means. Meanwhile, Major Crime investigators Russell Foley and Sam Rose are hot on their trail, leading to a tense chase across the Australian outback. This gripping tale intertwines desperation, meticulous planning, and a race against time, questioning whether Foley and Rose can thwart their plans before more lives are lost.

Excerpt from The Petticoat Gang (Foley & Rose Book 4)

The woman entered the bank, paused for a moment and glanced at the lone teller behind the counter. She shifted her gaze and smiled briefly at the internal security camera mounted on the wall of the customer area, routinely albeit discreetly filming everyone who entered. Nothing about her demeanor or her general appearance, other than being quite beautiful, distinguished her from other customers. Relaxed and confident, her body moving like a runway models, she crossed the short distance to the service counter.

Thomas Freeling, the only staff member working in the front service area of the bank, was preparing for the end of trading for the day and the long weekend ahead. He glanced up from his workstation as the woman entered. Thomas noticed immediately how pretty the lady was. No, she was more than pretty, he decided; she was stunning. Her hair, soft and glossy, like she’d just stepped out from an up-market salon, hung in long, cascading, auburn tresses to her shoulders. Thomas thought he knew most of the customers who came into the bank, especially the regulars, but he was sure he had not seen this woman before; she was not someone he would easily forget.

As he watched her approach his service point, his eyes took on a life of their own. They scanned the woman from the top of her head to her elegantly clad feet. Any desire to appear discreet in his appraisal of the woman disappeared. Thomas was, after all, a twenty-three-year-old, testosterone-charged, Aussie male — he was not dead.

She wore a light, almost transparent white blouse, tucked neatly into a figure-hugging black skirt that fell several inches short of her knees, displaying long, smooth, tanned legs. The top three buttons of her blouse, unbuttoned to a point just above the tantalising swell of her cleavage, offered something else that did not escape Thomas’s attention; the woman carried herself with a stylish elegance and confidence demanding admiration.

Thomas watched the woman glance briefly at the security camera. Then she smiled and fixed him with a look indicating, “I’m yours, take me right here on the floor of the bank.”— or so he wished.

She stepped up to the counter, ran the very tip of her tongue across her top lip, and smiled seductively at Thomas. “Hi,” she said throatily.

Not usually one driven to distraction, Thomas immediately and involuntarily adapted the persona of a blithering, stuttering, pimply-faced adolescent, faced with his very first sexual experience with a member of the opposite sex.

“H… h… hi,” he stammered. “H… how may I help you?”

“I would like some money,” the woman purred.

“You would like to m… make a wi… withdrawal?” Thomas managed to ask, albeit with embarrassing difficulty. Positive he was dribbling down his chin, and thereby making a complete ass of himself, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Yes, I would like to make a withdrawal,” the woman smiled.

“Excellent,” said Thomas. “If you would like to swi… swipe your card,” he indicated the card reader on the woman’s side of the counter.

“I don’t have a card,” she said.

“Oh… oh… you don’t have a card?”

“No, I don’t have a card.”

“Do you have an account at this bank, Ma… ma’am?”

“No, I don’t have an account, either.”

“I… I’m sorry, but you need an account with the bank before you can withdraw money.” Beautiful but dumb; a bloody shame, Thomas decided.

As though it might somehow be magically aimed directly at him, an almost imperceptible waft of perfume drifted across the counter in his direction. Suddenly, it became a momentous struggle for him to keep his eyes focused on a point, any point, above her silky-smooth neck.

“Perhaps I can use this.” The woman lifted her handbag onto the counter and reached inside.

The momentary distraction as the woman fished in her handbag, offered the perfect opportunity for Thomas to lower his eyes briefly to her breasts. The gentle swell of her bosom was the last thing Thomas Freeling saw before a 9mm slug crashed through the centre of his forehead.

* * *

Separated from the front-of-house customer service area by a prefabricated wall, the staff room of the bank came equipped with facilities enabling staff members to relax during their lunch breaks. It was also where, from time to time, management conducted staff meetings to update bank personnel with the latest banking news and procedural changes.

A door at the rear of the staff room opened into a narrow, single-vehicle, one-way service lane running the length of the rear of the Yeperenye Shopping Centre. It provided access to service vehicles delivering merchandise to the various stores plying their respective trades inside the centre.

It was also the door all bank staff members entered and exited through when arriving and leaving work. For security purposes, it was always locked. Staff gained access with secure key-cards embedded with security software unique to each member.

Alerted by one of his staff members, bank manager Luke Watson peeked through the spy hole in the door and saw black smoke rolling up the outside surface of the door. He immediately reached out, turned the internal dead-lock knob and swung the door inwards.

They came through the door fast. There were two of them, and although heavily disguised, it was obvious from their body shapes that they were women. The first woman through the door swung at Watson with the butt of a short-barreled 12 gauge shotgun, hitting him high on the side of his head. Watson’s knees folded beneath him and he collapsed to the floor. She stood over him and pointed the barrel at his head. She wore a full-face ugly witch mask complete with nose warts and sporting long strands of bright pink hair hanging limply over a soft rubber face.

The second woman kicked a smoldering bundle of rags into the room, slammed the door behind her and stepped over the bank manager’s prone form. Dressed in large, baggy, bright green coveralls, she also wore a full-face mask, this one of a clown’s face topped with a shoulder-length iridescent-purple wig. In one hand she carried a large sports bag, the type a cricketer might use to carry all his sporting equipment to and from a game. In her other hand she brandished a heavy tyre iron.

She waved the tyre iron menacingly at the remaining two staff members. “One sound from either one of you and you die. Right here, right now!” she hissed.

Carly Preston, nineteen years old, and the youngest and newest employee, sobbed loudly.

The woman in the clown mask quickly crossed the room and stepped in close to Carly. “Shut up!” she growled. “You start that hysterical shit and my friend is going to shoot you. Do you understand me?”

Carly stifled a sob.

“Do you understand me?” the clown lady spat.

“Ye… yes, I understand,” Carly stammered.

“Good girl,” The clown said. “Sit down on the floor.”

“Wha… what?”

“Sit… down… on… the… floor!” the clown ordered.

Carly leaned back against the wall, and with no regard for personal modesty, she slid-awkwardly down into a sitting position on the floor, her skirt rising high around her thighs.

The woman turned to the remaining staff member, thirty-seven-year-old Rochelle Browning. “You, too. On the floor!” she ordered.

Rochelle sat next to Carly and took the younger woman’s hand. Their eyes, wide with fear, oscillated back and forth between the two women in the horrible masks and their boss lying semi-conscious on the floor with blood running freely from a deep cut on his head.

The woman with the shotgun knelt on the floor next to the bank manager. “Luke, right?”

Luke Watson’s eyes fluttered open. He felt dampness trickle down his face and wiped at it. His hand came away covered in blood. He blinked a couple of times and looked up at the woman, her face just centimetres from his own.

“Luke Watson, right?” The woman asked again, her voice muffled and indistinct from behind the mask.

“Ye… yes,” Watson answered

“Where’s the tape, Luke?” the woman asked.

“Wha… what tape?”

“Don’t play dumb, Luke. The CCTV tape filming the front counter, where is it?”

“Th… there’s no tape,” Watson stammered, unconvincingly.

The witch woman stood, and placed the barrel of the shotgun centimetres from the bank manager’s mouth.

“You’ve worked for the bank a long time, Luke. You know the bank’s policy regarding armed holdups. Don’t resist. Give the robbers what they want. Remember? Now, I’m going to ask one more time, and if I get the ‘there’s no tape’ shit again, I’m gonna blow your face all across the room. Are we clear on that?”

Luke Watson’s eyes crossed as he looked into the cavernous barrel of the shotgun. “It’s in my office,” he offered submissively.

“Thank you, Luke. You might just have saved your life. Now slide over there and sit next to the ladies.”

Watson was slow to move, and the witch moved the shotgun closer until the end of the barrel touched the manager’s lips. “You need to start co-operating with me, Luke. I’m sure you don’t want to die, and I’m sure the ladies don’t want to see you die. Now, move your arse and sit next to the ladies.”

Watson slid awkwardly across the floor on his backside and joined his two staff members.

The woman turned to her accomplice, the clown lady, and handed her the shotgun. “Watch them,” she ordered, as she stepped over to a closed door at one end of the room, opened it and disappeared inside.

She returned less than two minutes later. In her free hand, she carried a small cassette-type tape. She waved it at her colleague. “Got it,” she announced.

The clown handed the sports bag to the witch, who dropped the tape into the bag and turned to the three terrified bank employees. Her eyes darted from Watson to Rochelle, to Carly and then back to Watson.

“I’m going into the strong-room, folks.” She indicated her colleague. “My friend, Crackers the clown, is going to stay right here. If any of you try anything stupid, she will shoot you. Are we clear on that?”

“Yes, we’re clear,” Watson answered.

The witch looked at the girls. “Are we clear, ladies?”

Rochelle and Carly nodded in unison. “Yes.”

“Excellent,” the witch said.

Built into the rear wall of the staff room, adjacent to the rear exit door, a heavy steel-reinforced door stood slightly ajar. The witch lady hurried across the room and heaved on the door. Inside was a small windowless strong-room lined with shelves on both sides. A bank of safety deposit boxes occupied most of the rear wall.

In one corner, below the shelves, a large, bulky free-standing floor safe, approximately two metres tall, stood with its door invitingly open. The last of the day’s monies from the front service area would be stored and secured in the safe for the coming weekend. On each of the three shelves inside the safe sat bundles of cash. Hundred-dollar notes on the top shelf, fifties on the second, twenties, tens, and fives on the third. The base of the safe contained a large number of coin trays, stacked three high, containing coins of every denomination.

Behind her witch mask, the lady smiled widely, dropped to her knees in front of the safe, and began filling the sports bag with money. She started with bundles of hundred-dollar notes. When the shelf was empty, she moved to the fifties, then the twenties and continued in descending order down through the face value of the notes until the sports bag was bulging.

With difficulty, she pushed down on the contents, stuffing as much as possible into the bag, zipped it closed and glanced at her watch. Less than five minutes had elapsed since they’d burst into the staff room.

“Perfect,” she murmured to herself. She got to her feet, hitched the bag over her shoulder and hurried from the strong room.

“Time to go,” she announced to Crackers, the clown.

Both women quickly crossed to the back door of the staff room and stepped outside into the rear access lane. The clown lady pulled the door closed behind them and, as was meticulously planned, they climbed into the waiting car, driven by the very pretty lady with the long auburn hair.

One minute ahead of schedule and they were gone, a million dollars richer than they were six minutes ago.