Sheila Kohler, "The Transitional Object"

A hard-up student comes back to her professor's office on a mission.

(from The O. Henry Prize Stories 2008)

We don't know what her mission is at first, and it's a weird mixed of tantalizing and annoying. And then, when we find out, well, It's really kinda run of the mill Law & Order type stuff. That's the big-picture plot though; and it's the sentence-by-sentence intrigue and desperation that carries the day here.